Pediatric Difficult Airway

The pediatric patient has a number of predictable difficult intubation criteria compared to adults. High American Society of Anesthesiologists score and congenital syndromes are among predictors. Cardiac and oromaxillofacial surgery were found to be associated with difficult airway Therefore, hypoxia can easily develop in a short time period. Causes of anatomical airway obstruction include inappropriate head position, inappropriate facial mask technique or large adenoids or tonsils and obesity. There are several advanced techniques for the management of pediatric difficult airway. Compared with direct laryngoscopy, videolaryngo scopes have been shown to provide a better view of laryngeal structures, have a slightly prolonged intubation time with a similar success rate. In guidelines, fibreoptic tracheal intubation through supraglottic airway devices is recommended as another resque method to provide an intact airway. In this review we aimed to analyse different approaches to the difficult pediatric airway management according to the recent literature.

Keywords: Airway management; difficult airway; children.