Journal of anesthesia
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Journal of anesthesia · Jan 2012
Incidence of unanticipated difficult airway in obstetric patients in a teaching institution.
Airway experience was analyzed among patients who had pregnancy-related surgery under general anesthesia from January 2001 through February 2006. A difficult airway was defined as needing three or more direct laryngoscopy (DL) attempts, use of the additional airway equipment after the DL attempts, or conversion to regional anesthesia due to inability to intubate. Airway characteristics were compared between patients with and without a difficult airway. In addition, pre- and postoperative airway evaluations were compared to identify factors closely related to changes from pregnancy. ⋯ Unanticipated difficult airways accounted for 0.56% of all pregnancy-related surgical patients. More than 99.9% of all obstetric patients could be intubated. A difficult airway is more likely to be encountered by anesthesia providers with <1 year of experience. Proper use of airway equipment may help secure the obstetric airway or provide adequate ventilation. Emergency CD did not add an additional level of difficulty over nonemergency CD.