JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association
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Case Reports Meta Analysis
Will This Patient Be Difficult to Intubate?: The Rational Clinical Examination Systematic Review.
Recognizing patients in whom endotracheal intubation is likely to be difficult can help alert physicians to the need for assistance from a clinician with airway training and having advanced airway management equipment available. ⋯ Although several simple clinical findings are useful for predicting a higher likelihood of difficult endotracheal intubation, no clinical finding reliably excludes a difficult intubation. An abnormal upper lip bite test, which is easily assessed by clinicians, raises the probability of difficult intubation from 10% to greater than 60% for the average-risk patient.