Acta clinica Croatica, Vol. 51. No. 3., 2012.
Conference paper
Postintubation Tracheal Injuries – Case Series and Literature Review
Vilka Bekavac Mišak
Ivana Vukušić
Jana Kogler
Leo Pažanin
Slavica Orehovec Ožegović
Abstract
Post-intubation tracheal injury is a rare and potentially fatal complication. The most common causes are overinflation of endotracheal tube cuffs and multiple intubation attempts in emergency cases. The diagnosis is based on clinical and radiological suspicion of tracheal injury confirmed by fiberoptic bronchoscopy. Decision between conservative and surgical management of the injury depends on clinical presentation (respiratory instability, concomitant diseases), lesion characteristics (lesion site, size, and number), and time elapsed from injury to diagnosis. We present three cases of post-intubation tracheal injury. In two cases, the patients were treated conservatively; in the third case, the patient died from asphyxia caused by thrombus occlusion of the trachea after a longitudinal tracheal lesion. Pre-anesthetic examination did not indicate any possibility of difficult intubation in any of the patients; however, in one of the patients admitted through the emergency department, emergency intubation was performed.
Keywords
Asphyxia; Intubation, intratracheal; Lacerations; Wounds and injuries
Hrčak ID:
107249
URI
Publication date:
1.10.2012.
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