Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jun;29(6):765-771.
doi: 10.1111/acem.14410. Epub 2021 Dec 9.

Prehospital airway management in the pediatric patient: A systematic review

Veronica K Weihing  1 , Ellen H Crowe  1 , Henry E Wang  2 , Irma T Ugalde  3
Affiliations
Free article

Prehospital airway management in the pediatric patient: A systematic review

Veronica K Weihing et al. Acad Emerg Med. 2022 Jun.
Free article

Abstract

Background: Critically ill children may require airway management to optimize delivery of oxygen and ventilation during resuscitation. We performed a systematic review of studies comparing the use of bag-valve-mask ventilation (BVM), supraglottic airway devices (SGA), and endotracheal intubation (ETI) in pediatric patients requiring prehospital airway management.

Methods: We searched Ovid MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases for papers that compared SGA or ETI to BVM use in children, including studies that reported survival outcomes. We followed the Preferred Reporting Items in Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines and assessed study quality using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. We compared key characteristics of the candidate papers, including inclusion criteria, definitions of airway interventions, and association with outcomes.

Results: Of 773 studies, eight met criteria for inclusion. Only one study was a randomized controlled trial; the other seven studies were observational. Four studies compared ETI to BVM, two studies compared SGA to BVM, one study compared ETI to SGA, and two studies compared advanced airway management (AAM) to BVM. Primary outcomes varied, ranging from overall mortality and 24-h mortality to 1-month survival, hospital survival, and neurologically favorable survival. Four of the studies found no difference in survival with the use of ETI, and four found increased mortality with the use of ETI. Associations with outcomes could not be assessed by meta-analysis due to limited number of studies and the wide variation in the design, population, interventions, and outcome measures of the included studies.

Conclusions: In this systematic review, studies of prehospital pediatric airway management varied in scope, design, and conclusions. There was insufficient evidence to evaluate efficacy of pediatric prehospital airway management; however, the current research suggests that there are equal or worse outcomes with the use of ETI compared to other airway techniques. Additional clinical trials are needed to assess the merits of this practice.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Anders J, Brown K, Simpson J, Gausche-Hill M. Evidence, and controversies in pediatric prehospital airway management. Clin Pediatr Emerg Med. 2014;15(1):28-37.
    1. Gnugnoli DM, Singh A, Shafer K. EMS Field Intubation. 2021. Accessed June 1, 2021. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538221/
    1. Gausche M, Lewis RJ, Stratton SJ, et al. Effect of out-of-hospital pediatric endotracheal intubation on survival and neurological outcome: a controlled clinical trial. JAMA. 2000;283(6):783-790.
    1. Moher D, Liberati A, Tetzlaff J, Altman DG, PRISMA Group. Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses: the PRISMA statement. PLoS Med. 2009;6(7):e1000097.
    1. Schardt C, Adams MB, Owens T, Keitz S, Fontelo P. Utilization of the PICO framework to improve searching PubMed for clinical questions. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2007;7:16.

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources