The association of body mass index with difficult tracheal intubation management by direct laryngoscopy: a meta-analysis

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization survey, obesity rates have almost doubled worldwide since 1980 [2]. An IDS score of 0 means easy intubation, 1 to 5 means slight difficulty, and > 5 means moderate to major difficulty [14]. [...]difficult intubation has been defined as requiring multiple attempts to place the tracheal tube into the trachea, lasting > 10 min using conventional laryngoscopy, or both, or and ISD > 5. In obese patients, emergency tracheal intubation can be particularly challenging because of the increased risk of impaired respiratory mechanics [37, 38], and poor tolerance of apnea [39–41]. According to the Cochrane Collaboration common scheme for bias and the ROBINS-I tool, the studies demonstrated low/moderate risk of bias.