Assessment of endotracheal tube intubation. Review of existing scales

Abstract

Due to the complications associated with endotracheal intubation, contraindications should be assessed prior to initiating the procedure when possible. Several scales have been created to assess the ease of in-tubation. These intubation scales use numerous scoring systems combined with subjective assessments to provide a quantifiable suggestion for the patients difficulty of tracheal intubation. While there is no formal definition of what comprises a difficult intubation, some parameters include effort, number of attempts and complications. Some of the most common scales to assess this difficulty include the Mallampati score, the Cormack Lehane scale, the intubation difficulty scale, the level of difficulty of intubation, as well as the simplified airway risk index. There have been several other proposed methods as well that are less frequently used contributing to even less cohesion in the evaluation of airways.