MEASUREMENT OF ENDOTRACHEAL TUBE CUFF PRESSURE IN EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT PATIENTS

The purpose of this research is to measure the endotracheal tube cuff pressure in patients who have been endotracheally intubated emergently in the emergency department or in the field by prehospital personnel. Overinflation of ETTc pressure is associated with injury, and we seek to determine if the phenomenon of excessively inflated ETTc can be detected in endotracheally intubated patients in the ED.

There is no experimental aspect to this study, it is only descriptive. Measurement of ETTc pressure is already performed by respiratory therapy/respiratory care. We simply seek to assess these measurements to determine if any patients in fact have high ETTc pressure. If it is found that patients do have ETTc with high pressures, this might allow emergency department staff or prehospital personnel such as paramedics or EMTs to use this information to seek methods by which endotracheal intubation can be improved and patients can be intubated without excessive ETTc pressure.

This is a pilot study. We have conducted several in vitro studies, which have all demonstrated that paramedics, EMTs, and emergency department physicians practice endotracheal intubation in a method that might result in excessively inflated ETTc.