The Journal of bone and joint surgery. American volume
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J Bone Joint Surg Am · Mar 1994
Upper-airway obstruction and perioperative management of the airway in patients managed with posterior operations on the cervical spine for rheumatoid arthritis.
We reviewed the records of 128 patients who had a total of 128 consecutive posterior operations on the cervical spine for problems related to rheumatoid arthritis. Our purpose was to examine perioperative complications related to the airway. The patients were divided into two groups for analysis on the basis of the technique of intubation that had been used. ⋯ The only significant difference between the groups was the time to extubation, which averaged 17.9 hours in the fiberoptic group and 10.6 hours in the non-fiberoptic group (p = 0.02). Logistic regression analysis showed that non-fiberoptic intubation was the significant risk factor, even when allowance was made for the difference in the lengths of time to extubation. We concluded that this life-threatening complication can be minimized with fiberoptic management of the airway.