Defining the plateau point: When are further attempts futile in out-of-hospital advanced airway management?
Resuscitation · 2018-07-03 · Registry study
Abstract
BACKGROUND: We sought to characterize the number of attempts required to achieve advanced airway management (AAM) success. METHODS: Using 4 years of data from a national EMS electronic health record system, we examined the following subsets of attempted AAM: 1) cardiac arrest intubation (CA-ETI), 2) non-arrest medical intubation (MED-ETI), 3) non-arrest trauma intubation (TRA-ETI), 4) rapid-sequence intubation (RSI), 5) sedation-assisted ETI (SAI), and 6) supraglottic airway (SGA). We determined the first pass and overall success rates, as well as the point of additional attempt futility ("plateau point"). RESULTS: Among 57,209 patients there were 64,291 AAM. CA-ETI performance was: first-pass success (FPS) 71.4% (95% CI: 70.9-71.9%), 4 attempts to reach 91.5% (91.2-91.9%) success plateau. MED-ETI performance was: FPS 66.0% (95% CI: 65.1-67.0%), 3 attempts to reach 79.2% (78.4-80.0%) success plateau. TRA-ETI performance was: FPS 61.6% (95% CI: 59.3-63.9%), 3 attempts to reach 75.8% (73.7-77.8%) success plateau. RSI performance was: FPS 76.1% (95% CI: 75.1-77.1%), 5 attempts to reach 95.8% (95.3-96.2%) success plateau. SAI performance was: FPS 66.9% (95% CI: 65.1-68.6%), 3 attempts to 85.3% (83.9-86.6%) success plateau. SGA performance was: FPS 88.7% (95% CI: 88.0-89.3%), 5 attempts to reach 92.8% (92.3-93.4%) success plateau. CONCLUSION: Multiple attempts are often needed to accomplish successful AAM. The number of attempts needed to accomplish AAM varies with AAM technique. These results may guide AAM practices.
Tags
Endotracheal intubation · Rapid sequence intubation · Supraglottic airway