Ultrasonography for Endotracheal Tube Placement Confirmation in an Emergency Setting - A Prospective Study in a Teritiary Hospital

Abstract

Background: Ultrasonography, clinical methods and capnography are used to confirm the proper placement of endotracheal tube. Ultrasonography was thought to have high sensitivity and specificity and took less when compared with other two methods.
 Aims: To compare ultrasonography with the traditional clinical methods and the gold standard quantitative waveform capnography in confirming the proper placement of endotracheal tube.
 Materials and Methods: We carried out a prospective cohort study on 120 patients who were indicated for intubation in an emergency department of a tertiary care hospital, Chalmeda Anand Rao Institute of Medical Sciences, Karimnagar, Telangana State, India. The study was carried out from June 2017 to December 2017. The confirmation of endotracheal tube placement was identified by three methods, ultrasonography, quantitative waveform capnography (end-tidal carbon dioxide) and traditional clinical method. The parameters recorded by three methods were confirmation of tube placement and time taken for tube placement.
 Results: Out of the 120 intubation attempts, six (5 %) had esophageal intubations. Ultrasonography produced a sensitivity and specificity of diagnosis of 98.63% and 100%, respectively, which was statistically comparable with the other two methods. When the time taken to confirm tube placement was compared, it was found that ultrasonography took significantly less time. The time taken by ultrasonography, waveform capnography and clinical methods was 8.13 ± 1.27, 17.86 ± 2.34 and 20.13 ± 2.72 seconds respectively.
 Conclusion: The endotracheal tube placement was confirmed by ultrasonography with comparable sensitivity and specificity to other two methods i.e. quantitative waveform capnography and clinical methods and it took less time.