Airway dimensions in the population of Cuenca-Ecuador

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18537/RFCM.39.01.03

Keywords:

intubation, airway management, inpatients, anesthesia general

Abstract

Objective: to describe the airway characteristics in a local population with the head in a neutral position, according to: distance between upper middle incisors to vocal cords, cricoid cartilage, carina and the point between the third and fourth tracheal ring, counted from the carina cephalad; vocal cords to carina, trachea, number of tracheal rings and correlate with height and sex.

Methodology: it is a descriptive study in patients who were operated at the “Hospital de Especialidades José Carrasco Arteaga" and “Hospital Regional Vicente Corral Moscoso" during March 2019 to March 2020. Data were collected using a flexometer, stadiometer and flexible bronchoscope Ambu Scope 3 The data analysis was carried out in the IBM-SPSS 22.0 software with descriptive statistical measures and correlations.

Results:  a total of 151 patients were evaluated. The length of the middle incisors: at the carina was 23.32 ± (1.98) cm, at the cricoid 14.93 ± (1.38) cm, at the vocal cords 13.07 ± (1.36) cm, at the third or fourth tracheal ring counted from the carina towards cephalic 20.81 ± (2.03) cm; from the vocal cords to carina of 10.24 ± (1.45) cm; the trachea on average measured 8.40 ± (1.37) cm, with 13 tracheal rings.

Conclusion: the airway measurements obtained are in agreement with the studies of ethnic groups similar to that of the study population, which indicates that extrapolating the data from the classic texts of Caucasian ethnicities can cause errors in daily practice such as endobronchial intubation or inadvertent extubation.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Downloads

Published

2021-10-08

Issue

Vol. 39 No. 1 (2021): Revista de la Facultad de Ciencias Médicas de la Universidad de Cuenca

Section

Original Article

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Leonardo Alfredo Serrano Bejar, Priscila Victoria Reinoso Murillo, Nadia Rosalía Peñafiel Martínez, Andrea Jackeline Vaca Morocho, Mónica Viviana Serrano Béjar

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Copyright © Autors.

You are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Under the following conditions:

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licenser endorses you or your use.
  NonCommercial  — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
  ShareAlike  — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
  No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the licence permits.