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ISSN 2063-5346
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Evaluation of Point of Care Ultrasonography for Assessment of Tracheal Tube Placement Under General Anaesthesia: An Observational Study

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Dr. Akhil Piyush, Dr. Arvind Kumar, Dr. Aziz Ahmed, Dr. Mumtaz Hussain
» doi: 10.48047/ecb/2023.12.7.269

Abstract

Endotracheal intubation, a procedure performed by anesthesiologists, emergency medical doctors, and critical care physicians, is crucial for saving lives. Several methods exist to distinguish between placing the tube in the trachea or the esophagus. Despite advancements in differentiating between tracheal and esophageal intubation, accurately determining the correct positioning of the endotracheal tube inside the trachea remains challenging. Methods: It was observational study, conducted in the department of Anesthesiology at Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna during the period February 2019 to September 2020. A total 188 patients were enrolled who were scheduled for elective surgery, where general anesthesia and oro-tracheal intubation were required. To evaluate the trustworthiness of ultrasound-guided intubation as a technique to confirm endotracheal intubation. Results: The most common age group in our study was 21-40 years involving 61.7% (116) patients followed by 41-60 years (35.6%) and the least common age group was ≤20years (2.7%) with a mean age of 36.38 years. Majority of the patients of our study were males (68.1%). The mean duration for Ultrasonography confirmation of endotracheal intubation was 14.098 seconds. Confirmation with capnography using appearance of first waveform was found with a mean time of 27.244 seconds and confirmation using chest auscultation for air entry showed a mean time of 43.36 seconds. We evaluated correlation of mean time difference between ultrasonography, capnography & auscultation using Pearson’s correlation. Pearson's correlation test showed a strong positive association between ultrasonography, capnography and chest auscultation. Conclusion: It can be concluded that confirmation of ETT position using either auscultation, ultrasonography or capnography is a mandatory requirement because of the high false diagnosis depending on standard auscultatory confirmation alone. Using bed-side ultrasonography is an easy, accurate and fast method than standard auscultation compared to capnography as a gold standard, so it is suggested to be one of the essential theatre equipments whenever possible.

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