Ultrasound guided evaluation of airway in predicting difficult endotracheal intubation in an eastern Indian Hospital

Several pre-operative airway assessment methods exist to predict difficult airway, but unexpected difficult endotracheal intubation may occur. These assessment criteria are not often useful in uncooperative patients and unconscious patients.  Most of the airway assessment criteria are objective in nature and are therefore prone to inter-observer variability. Also, the Cormack Lehane grading doesn’t always correlate with pre-op airway assessment parameters. Hence, the diagnostic accuracy by the pre-operative assessment technique remains inadequate for predicting difficult endotracheal intubation and there is still search for a simple, yet non-invasive way to provide more accurate prediction  about difficult airway. There are limited literature available comparing airway ultrasound parameters with difficult airway scoring system based on observation using direct laryngoscopy. Besides that, there is no available literature regarding ultrasonographic soft tissue thickness parameters of neck as a part of preoperative airway assessment in patients admitted to an Eastern Indian hospital. Therefore present study has been taken up to determine utility of ultrasound based airway assessment in evaluating difficult airway in patients admitted to an eastern Indian hospital.