Utility of Colorado Pediatric Airway Score (COPUR) in predicting difficult airway and intubation among children undergoing elective surgeries in a tertiary care hospital

Identification of patients with a difficult airway is vital in planning anaesthetic management so that tracheal intubation can be achieved safely. Several preoperative screening tools are being used in clinical anaesthesia to identify adult patients who are difficult to intubate. A significant association is seen between non-invasive clinical predictors of airway assessment and the incidence of difficult intubation (DI), yet no single method is expected to predict DI accurately. Anaesthetic literature is deficient regarding airway assessment tools for paediatric patients. Hence the present study is being undertaken to assess the utility of COPUR scale in identifying children with difficulty in intubation. The Colorado Pediatric Airway (COPUR) scale was first described in an article by Geoffrey Lane. To the best of our knowledge, there haven’t been studies conducted to assess its validity in predicting difficult intubation yet.