Abstract
We, anesthesiologists, have some chance to perform fiberoptic tracheal intubation due to the anticipated difficult airway in elderly patients with chronic rheumatoid arthritis or cervical spondylosis, and so on. Because of their concomitant cardiovascular complications, careful attention should be paid to hemodynamic changes during fiberoptic tracheal intubation. In those patients, we have chosen the anesthetic-induction technique of inhaled high concentration sevoflurane and maintenance under spontaneous breathing during fiberoptic tracheal intubation. Sevoflurane inhalation under spontaneous breathing can provide suppression of the airway reflex with adequate analgesia as well as maintain oxygenation and hemodynamic stability. In this article, we introduce our procedure of fiberoptic tracheal intubation under general anesthesia by inhaled sevoflurane.
