Articles: tracheal-tube.
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Paediatric anaesthesia · Feb 2021
Simulated dimensional compatibility of uncuffed and cuffed tracheal tubes for selective endobronchial intubation in children.
Cuffed tracheal tubes have recently been recommended for selective endobronchial intubation to establish single-lung ventilation even in smaller children. This implies that, compared with uncuffed tracheal tubes, the cuffed tracheal tubes selected will be smaller and therefore have a shorter length. We hypothesized that cuffed tracheal tubes might be of insufficient length for selective endobronchial intubation if the tube cuff were fully immersed in the left or right mainstem bronchus. ⋯ For many age groups of patients requiring selective endobronchial intubation, the lengths of cuffed tracheal tubes, in contrast to those of uncuffed tracheal tubes, were revealed to be critically short for safe taping outside the oral cavity with the cuff placed completely within the right or left mainstem bronchus.
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Review Meta Analysis
Efficacy of topical agents for prevention of postoperative sore throat after single lumen tracheal intubation: a Bayesian network meta-analysis.
The optimal choice of prophylactic drugs to decrease postoperative sore throat is unclear. The objective of this network meta-analysis (NMA) was to compare and rank 11 topical agents used to prevent postoperative sore throat. ⋯ Topical application of magnesium followed by liquorice and corticosteroids most effectively prevented postoperative sore throat 24 hr after endotracheal intubation.
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For routine anaesthesia in ASA 1 & 2 patients a 6.0-7.0 mm ETT is probably the best balance between ventilation needs and airway trauma.
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Observational Study
Effects of tracheal intubation and tracheal tube position on regional lung ventilation: an observational study.
Take me back to the First Part
This study confirmed the well-known observation of the ventral ventilation shift under positive pressure ventilation, and quantified the contribution from the endotrachial tube itself, versus from muscle relaxation and IPPV.
This ventral shift under IPPV has also been shown to occur during pressure support ventilation with an LMA, when compared with spontaneous breathing under GA (Radke 2012).
Using electrical impedance tomography Lumb et al. confirmed this ventral shift in supine IPPV subjects, and demonstrated that this is primarily due to IPPV rather than the ETT itself, – although they found tube presence contributed to ~16% of the change.
"The generally accepted physiological explanation ... is that of greater cephalad movement of the diaphragm in dependent vs. non‐dependent lung regions during anaesthesia, resulting in changes in regional lung compliance."
"...regional ventilation with positive pressure ventilation during anaesthesia, even with no tracheal tube in place, is grossly different when compared with spontaneous ventilation, with greater ventilation of the left lung and ventral regions of both lungs. These effects are exacerbated by ventilation through a tracheal tube, leading to a greater degree of inhomogeneity of overall ventilation compared with when awake.
Take-home message
The authors note that while anaesthetists understand the detrimental effect of inadvertent endobronchial intubation, simply having the ETT tip close to the carina also worsens V/Q mismatch and is not as well appreciated. In these situations, tube withdrawal and/or 90o rotation may improve V/Q match.
Although this may be clinical insignificant for most patients, it should be considered when needing to improve gas exchange, particularly in critical care patients.
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Review Meta Analysis
Intravenous lidocaine to prevent postoperative airway complications in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Cough: why care?
Although often minor, common post-operative complications have by definition a broad impact on the perioperative experience. Some common complications, such as coughing on extubation, can also have significant surgical consequences such as for neurosurgical or ophthalmic procedures.
Both coughing on extubation (reported incidence 15-94%) and post-operative sore throat (21-72%) are very common among surgical patients.
What did they do?
Yang and team performed a high-quality meta-analysis of RCTs investigating the effect of intravenous lidocaine/lignocaine on coughing at extubation. Many of these trials also looked at further secondary effects, such as post-operative sore throat. They included 16 trials, totalling 1,516 subjects. Although the trials demonstrated significant heterogeneity, subgroup analyses still confirmed the study's findings.
And they found...
There was significant reduction in cough RR 0.64 (0.48-0.86 & NNT=5), and post-operative sore throat RR 0.46 (0.32-0.67), though no difference in laryngospasm, adverse events or time to extubation with modern volatile agents.
Analysing various lidocaine timings (pre-operative vs intra-operative) and dose ranges (low <1.5mg/kg or high >1.5 mg/kg) yielded no evidence of clear advantage. Nonetheless the findings are consistent with previous reviews, such as from Clivio et al. (2019) showing lidocaine 1.5 mg/kg reduced cough (RR: 0.44; 0.33–0.58), and that the effect is probably dose responsive.
Ok, but how does lidocaine work?
The mechanism of action reducing cough is not understood, although several possibilities have been proposed, including...
"...the suppression of airway sensory C fibres, the reduction of neural discharge of peripheral nerve fibres, and the selective depression of pain transmission in the spinal cord."
Bottom-line
Peri-operative intravenous lignocaine effectively reduces coughing on extubation and reduces post-operative sore throat, without any increase in adverse events.
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