Chapter 28 - Airway Management in the Critically Ill

Summary

Many studies from around the world, especially NAP4 in the UK, have demonstrated that airway management in critically ill patients, whether in the intensive care unit, emergency department or general wards, is fraught with danger. Serious morbidity or mortality may be 50-fold more common than in anaesthetic practice. This chapter describes the essential features of airway management specific to critical care intubation. The importance of an intubation bundle approach is emphasised, such as the UK’s Difficult Airway Society guidelines for tracheal intubation in the critically ill adult. Components include: (i) deliberate and thoughtful application of human factors science to optimise team performance and sharing the airway plan; (ii) assessment of potential difficulty based on the MACOCHA scoring system; (iii) pre-oxygenation using continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) or non-invasive ventilation, high flow nasal oxygen, or a combination of these; (iv) a modified rapid sequence induction with continuous peroxygenation; (v) optimising laryngoscopy and intubation with early videolaryngoscopy by a trained operator; (vi) airway rescue with an amalgamated Plan B/C, borrowing from the Vortex approach; (vii) use of second generation supraglottic airways (SGAs); (viii) priming for front of neck airway (FONA) and (ix) a scalpel-bougie-tube cricothyroidotomy when managing cannot intubate, cannot oxygenate (CICO).