Pretracheal fat evaluatrd by ultrasound: association with difficult orotracheal intubation in patients with grade II and III obesity.

Abstract

The unanticipated difficult airway is a common problem faced by all anesthesiologists, especially obese patients who have certain physical characteristics that classify them in this group; the recognition of predictors in the preoperative assessment continues to be the best tool. useful. At present it has been determined that the accumulation of soft tissue in the anterior region of the neck can be considered a predictor which is estimated with ultrasound. OBJECTIVE: To establish the association between the measurement of pretracheal fat determined by ultrasound with the difficulty of orotracheal intubation in patients with grade II or III obesity. METHODS: TYPE OF STUDY: observational, analytical POPULATION: The population will be made up of type II and III obese patients who require surgery with general anesthesia and are referred to the CMDLT anesthesiology service during the period from June 2022 to October 2022. RESULTS: the sample had a total of 30 patients Regarding those patients who presented a "Difficult Airway" and its relationship with "Pretracheal Fat" the following was observed: Of the 100% of patients with less "Pretracheal Fat" 28 mm 3.4% presented «Difficult Airway». Meanwhile, 20.7% of patients with “Pretracheal Fat” > 28 mm presented “Difficult Airway”. CONCLUSIONS: pretracheal fat (> 28 mm) has high sensitivity and moderate specificity to predict difficult intubation in patients with Obesity II and III