Do Difficult Airway Techniques Predispose Obese Patients to Bronchospasm?

• Published in: Turkish journal of anaesthesiology and reanimation 2018-08, Vol.46 (4), p.292
• Main Authors: Ieropoulos, Polyhronis, Tassoudis, Vassilios, Ntafoulis, Nick, Mimitou, Ioanna, Vretzakis, George, Tzovaras, George, Zacharoulis, Dimitrios, Karanikolas, Menelaos
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Intubation; Obesity
• ISSN: 2667-677X; 2667-6370
• DOI: 10.5152/TJAR.2018.02328

Objective: The existing evidence separately correlates morbid obesity with difficult intubation and bronchospasm. However, there is a lack of data on whether anaesthesia provider manipulations during difficult intubation contribute to an increased ratio of bronchospasm in these patients. Methods: This is a retrospective analysis of data prospectively taken from 50 morbidly obese patients involved in a previously published study. A possible difficult intubation was preoperatively investigated by recording the following specific physical examination indices: Mallampati and Cormack–Lehane (CL) classifications, cervical spine mobility (CSM), thyromental distance (Td) and patients’ ability to open their mouth (mouth opening). Bronchospasm was clinically detected by auscultation and confirmed by measuring peak airway pressures during mechanical ventilation. The Kruskal–Wallis H test was used for data analysis, followed by the Mann-Whitney U test as applicable. Results: Different physical examination prognostic indices, including Mallampati and CL scales (p