The Correlation of the Cervical Symptoms With Intubation Quality and Airway Assessment

Plain-language summary

Cervical spine disorders can cause neck pain with or without neurological dysfunction. The most common cause of acute and chronic neck pain is cervical degenerative changes. Surgical decision of cervical pathology is made by anamnesis, neurological examination and imaging methods. Airway management can be difficult for patients presenting for cervical spine surgery. In addition, these patients may have severe cervical spine instability or spinal cord level myelopathy and may develop serious neurological complications associated with the intubation technique. Videolaringoscopes, which have become widely used with the developing technology, provide a better view than direct laryngoscopy in terms of cervical immobilization during intubation. Therefore, videolaryngoscope is preferred for cervical pathologies. Nowadays, the use of videolaryngoscope is recommended in patients with airway difficulty. Neutral position is important for intubation of patients with cervical pathology and it is highly recommended in the literature to evaluate these patients as difficult airways. All cervical patients are intubated with videolaryngoscope in investigator's clinic. The aim of this study was to evaluate how long the duration of cervical pathology affects airway anatomy and how it affects airway management during anesthesia. On the other hand, airway-related measurements will be performed by MRI and ultrasonography (USG), which is routinely evaluated in the diagnosis process, and it will be aimed to evaluate these measurements in terms of their effects on intubation quality. At the end of the study, all evaluations were analyzed and it was aimed to compare the effects of other evaluated parameters (such as USG and MRI measurements) on intubation difficulty level, with cervical pathology duration being primary.

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