NCBINCBI Logo
Skip to main content
Skip to navigation
Resources
How To
About NCBI Accesskeys
Sign in to NCBI
PubMed
US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
Search databaseSearch term
Search
AdvancedHelp
Result Filters
AbstractSend to:
West J Emerg Med. 2015 Dec;16(7):1052-6. doi: 10.5811/westjem.2015.8.28045. Epub 2015 Dec 1.
Direct Versus Video Laryngoscopy for Intubating Adult Patients with Gastrointestinal Bleeding.
Carlson JN1, Crofts J1, Walls RM2, Brown CA 3rd2.
Author information
Abstract
INTRODUCTION:
Video laryngoscopy (VL) has been advocated for several aspects of emergency airway management; however, there are still concerns over its use in select patient populations such as those with large volume hematemesis secondary to gastrointestinal (GI) bleeds. Given the relatively infrequent nature of this disease process, we sought to compare intubation outcomes between VL and traditional direct laryngoscopy (DL) in patients intubated with GI bleeding, using the third iteration of the National Emergency Airway Registry (NEARIII).
METHODS:
We performed a retrospective analysis of a prospectively collected national database (NEARIII) of intubations performed in United States emergency departments (EDs) from July 1, 2002, through December 31, 2012. All cases where the indication for intubation was "GI bleed" were analyzed. We included patient, provider and intubation characteristics. We compared data between intubation attempts initiated as DL and VL using parametric and non-parametric tests when appropriate.
RESULTS:
We identified 325 intubations, 295 DL and 30 VL. DL and VL cases were similar in terms of age, sex, weight, difficult airway predictors, operator specialty (emergency medicine, anesthesia or other) and level of operator training (post-graduate year 1, 2, etc). Proportion of successful first attempts (DL 261/295 (88.5%) vs. VL 28/30 (93.3%) p=0.58) and Cormack-Lehane grade views (p=0.89) were similar between devices. The need for device change was similar between DL [2/295 (0.7%) and VL 1/30 (3.3%); p=0.15].
CONCLUSION:
In this national registry of intubations performed in the ED for patients with GI bleeds, both DL and VL had similar rates of success, glottic views and need to change devices.