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Difficult Tracheal Intubation in Obese Gastric Bypass patients

Obesity Surgery volume 26, pages 2640–2647 (2016)Cite this article

Abstract

Background

Endotracheal intubation is commonly perceived to be more difficult in obese patients than in lean patients. Primarily, we investigated the association between difficult tracheal intubation (DTI) and obesity, and secondarily, the association between DTI and validated scoring systems used to assess the airways, the association between DTI and quantities of anesthetics used to induce general anesthesia, and the association between DTI and difficulties with venous and arterial cannulation.

Methods

This is a monocentric prospective observational clinical study of a consecutive series of 539 obese patients undergoing gastric bypass. Tracheal intubation was done preoperatively together with scoring of Intubation Score (IS), Mallampati (MLP), and Cormack-Lehane classification (CLC) and registration of the quantities of anesthetics and total attempts on cannulation.

Results

The overall proportion of patients with DTI was 3.5 % and the patients with DTI were more frequently males, had higher CLC, higher American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status classification (ASA), and noticeably, a lower BMI compared to the patients with easy tracheal intubation. After adjustment with multivariable analyses body mass index (BMI) <40, CLC >2, ASA scores >2, and male gender were risk factors of DTI. Males generally had higher CLC, MLP, and ASA scores compared to females, but no difference in BMI. There was no difference in quantities of anesthetics used between the two groups with or without DTI. Intra-venous and intra-arterial cannulation was succeeded in first attempt in 85 and 86 % of the patients, respectively, and there were no association between BMI and difficult vascular access.

Conclusions

We found no association between increasing BMI and DTI.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, Herlev University Hospital, Herlev Ringvej 75, Herlev, 2730, Denmark

    Niclas Dohrn

  2. Department of Surgery, University Hospital of Aarhus, Nørrebrogade 44, Aarhus, 8000, Denmark

    Thorbjørn Sommer

  3. Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Lillebaelt Hospital, Skovvangen 2-8, Kolding, 6000, Denmark

    Jannie Bisgaard

  4. Bariatric Center, Mølholm Private Hospital, Brummersvej 1, Vejle, 7100, Denmark

    Ebbe Rønholm & Jens Fromholt Larsen

Authors
  1. Niclas Dohrn
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  2. Thorbjørn Sommer
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  3. Jannie Bisgaard
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  4. Ebbe Rønholm
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  5. Jens Fromholt Larsen
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Correspondence to Niclas Dohrn.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

For this type of study, formal consent is not required. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Dohrn, N., Sommer, T., Bisgaard, J. et al. Difficult Tracheal Intubation in Obese Gastric Bypass patients. OBES SURG 26, 2640–2647 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-016-2141-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11695-016-2141-0

Keywords

  • Airway management
  • Airway assessment
  • Difficult tracheal intubation
  • Obesity
  • Gastric bypass