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Capnography for Detection of Accidental Oesophageal Intubation
Author(s) -
Linko K.,
Paloheimo M.,
Tammisto T.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
acta anaesthesiologica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.738
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1399-6576
pISSN - 0001-5172
DOI - 10.1111/j.1399-6576.1983.tb01934.x
Subject(s) - capnography , medicine , intubation , tracheal intubation , accidental , anesthesia , ventilation (architecture) , carbon dioxide , airway , surgery , mechanical engineering , ecology , physics , acoustics , engineering , biology
The clinical diagnostic signs for detecting inadvertent oesophageal intubation may all be misleading. We therefore tested the practice of recording exhaled carbon dioxide during the intubation procedure as an additional measure for detection of accidental oesophageal intubation. Twenty patients were intubated simultaneously into the trachea and oesophagus and the carbon dioxide concentration was continuously recorded from both sources. Manual ventilation of the lungs always resulted in a typical CO 2 curve pattern. Ventilation by mask prior to the intubation obviously resulted in some filling of the stomach by exhaled gas in 9 of the 20 patients. In these cases some CO 2 could be detected during oesophageal ventilation. As the oesophageal CO 2 concentrations were very low initially, compared to the tracheal recordings, and carbon dioxide completely disappeared after a few ventilations into the oesophagus, distinguishing between the tracheal and oesophageal capnography tracings was easy.