1Senior Resident, Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, AIIMS, Patna
2Assistant Professor, Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Trauma Center, BHU, Varanasi
3Senior Resident, Trauma Center, BHU, Varanasi
*Corresponding author: Neeraj Kumar, Senior Resident, Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, AIIMS, Patna
Online published on 2 September, 2017.
We conducted an observational study to measure tracheal tube cuff pressures in a traumatic brain injury patients admitted to neuro critical care in view of raised intracranial pressure where prolonged intubation is common. We included fifty patients in whom we measured tracheal cuff pressure were studied. About fifty three percent of all tracheal cuffs had intracuff pressures above the recommended value. On searching various literature we found that in most of the studies tracheal tube cuff pressure is not routinely measured in a traumatic brain injury patients. A critically ill patients are particularly vulnerable to tracheal injury due to prolonged intubation. We suggest that cuff pressures should be measured regularly especially in traumatic brain injury patients were raised intracranial pressure is an important concern.
Tracheal tube, cuff pressure
