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Background: Pre‐hospital tracheal intubation in trauma patients has recently been questioned. However, not only the trauma and patient characteristics but also airway provider competence differ between systems making simplified statements difficult. Method: The study is a subgroup analysis of trauma patients included in the PHAST study. PHAST was a prospective, observational, multicentre study on pre‐hospital advanced airway management by anaesthesiologist and nurse anaesthetist manned pre‐hospital critical care teams in the Nordic countries May 2015‐November 2016. Endpoints include intubation success rate, complication rate (airway‐related complication according to Utstein Airway Template by Sollid et al), scene time (time from arrival of the critical care team to departure of the patient) and pre‐hospital mortality. Result: The critical care teams intubated 385 trauma patients, of which 65 were in shock (SBP <90 mm Hg), during the study. Of the trauma patients, 93% suffered from blunt trauma, the mean GCS was 6 and 75% were intubated by an experienced provider who had performed >2500 tracheal intubations. The pre‐hospital tracheal intubation overall success rate was 98.6% and the complication rate was 13.6%, with no difference between patients with or without shock. The mean scene time was significantly shorter in trauma patients with shock (21.4 min) compared to without shock (21.4 vs 25.1 min). Following pre‐hospital tracheal intubation, 97% of trauma patients without shock and 91% of the patients in shock with measurable blood pressure were alive upon arrival to the ED. Conclusion: Pre‐hospital tracheal intubation success and complication rates in trauma patients were comparable with in‐hospital rates in a system with very experienced airway providers. Whether the short scene times contributed to a low pre‐hospital mortality needs further investigation in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In pre-hospital care, pre-intubation checklists (PICL) are widely implemented as a safety measure and guidelines support their use. However, the true value of PICL among experienced airway providers is unknown. This study aims to explore possible benefits and disadvantages of PICL in the pre-hospital setting.Methods: We performed a subgroup analysis of a prospective, observational, multicentre study on pre-hospital advanced airway management in the Nordic countries between May 2015 and November 2016. The original trial was designed to investigate the success rates of pre-hospital tracheal intubations and the incidence of complications. Our study limited inclusion to drug assisted intubations performed by anaesthesiologists. Intubation success rates and complication rates were plotted against checklist use.Results: We analyzed 588 pre-hospital intubations for medical and traumatic emergencies. Overall, checklists were used in 60.5% of instances. Applying checklists was associated with increased success at first and second intubation attempts. There was no significant difference in the overall success rates (99.4% and 99.1%). Oesophageal misplacement was more common in the No-PICL group (2.2% vs 0.3%) but otherwise the incidence of airway related complications did not differ between the groups. Scene time was significantly shorter in the No-PICL group (23.6 vs 27.5 minutes).Conclusion: In this retrospective study, checklist use correlated with fewer attempts at intubation when securing the airway. Despite this, we found no association between checklist use and the overall TI success rate or the incidence of serious adverse events. Scene times were shorter without PICL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Difficulties with prehospital intubations have encouraged the development of indirect laryngoscopy techniques, facilitating laryngeal visualization. Airtraq® is a relatively new single-use indirect laryngoscope. The Airtraq® has been evaluated in several prehospital mannequin intubation trials. However, prehospital clinical experience with the device is limited. Methods A retrospective medical chart review was performed for patients who underwent prehospital endotracheal intubation in the Stockholm County between January 2008 and December 2012. Both anaesthesiologists and nurse anaesthetists performed prehospital intubations during the study period. All Airtraq® intubations during this period were included in the analysis. The objective was to estimate the success rate of Airtraq® used in a prehospital setting. Results During the 5-year period (January 2008- December 2012), 2453 tracheal intubations were performed. Airtraq® was used in 28 cases (1%). The overall Airtraq® intubation success rate was 68%. Among patients with anticipated or unexpected difficult airway (23/28) the Airtraq® success rate was 61% (14/23). Among patients who underwent drug facilitated or rapid-sequence intubation protocols 4/5 (80%) were successfully intubated with Airtraq®. Conclusion In conclusion, this retrospective study showed a higher Airtraq® success rate than previous prospective prehospital trials. However, compared to other prehospital direct and indirect intubation methods the Airtraq success rate is low. Further clinical trials are necessary to evaluate the role of Airtraq® in the prehospital airway management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]