Abstract
Objectives: There are few reports of surgical airway management (SAM) in Japanese prehospital settings. We investigated the current situation of prehospital SAM performed by physicians. Methods: We collected retrospective medical records from April 2006 to June 2011. Results: Of the 6,102 patients who received prehospital emergency care, 1,209 were intubated and 8 underwent SAM. The latter accounted for 0.66% of all airway stabilization cases. The median age of patients who underwent SAM was 67 years. The most common reason for difficulty in airway management was airway obstruction, as seen in 7 cases. The median time from patient contact to SAM completion was 17.5 min, and the median number of failed intubation attempts was 2. The intubation was likely to take a longer time with respect to the number of trials. After 28 days of airway management, 4 of 5 patients (80%) without cardio-pulmonary arrest survived. There were no complications related to prehospital SAM. Conclusions: Airway obstruction was the most common reason for SAM in prehospital settings. Although the 28-day mortality was low, it was a challenge to shorten the time taken for airway management, because performing SAM under prehospital circumstances with limited resources is time consuming.
