Comparison of Endotracheal Intubation Using Flexible Fiberoptic Bronchoscopy Versus Flexible Intubation Video Endoscope (FIVE) in Obese Patients Undergoing Elective Surgeries Under General Anesthesia: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Airway management is considered a cardinal aspect of anesthetic practice and of emergency and intensive care medicine. Endotracheal intubation is a simple, safe, rapid and nonsurgical method that achieves all the objectives of airway management which include maintaining a patent airway, lung protection from aspiration and allows leak free ventilation during mechanical ventilation. Even though endotracheal intubation isn't a complication free procedure, some of them life-threatening. It is important to anesthesiologists to be alert to these complications and to have an effective plan to avoid and manage these complications when they occur .

If a clear airway can't be guaranteed, it can be fatal. In 1990, an analysis of anesthesia-related closed claims in the USA declared that respiratory system adverse outcomes were the lone largest class of injury and that the percentage of death or catastrophic brain insult associated with it was much higher than that associated with cardiovascular problems.Since then, it became a priority to decrease the serious adverse outcomes associated with airway management; major protocols for difficult airway management have been defined, developing new reliable airway devices, and adequate monitoring of ventilation by pulse oximetry and capnography have become a standard. Thanks to these efforts, the incidence of these serious adverse outcomes is likely to be reduced, and airway management can now be considered as a safe procedure.

Endotracheal intubation is still the "gold standard" in airway management . If with using traditional techniques or video-assisted techniques which can be used when there is intubation failure or anticipated difficult airway. Video-assisted techniques may help to increase intubation success.

Video-assisted techniques allow to indirectly visualize the laryngeal structures with fiber optical or camera chip technique and to show the video picture on an external or built-in monitor.

Fiberoptic intubation has been considered for a long time the gold standard technique for intubation when there is anticipated or known difficult airway or as a rescue device in can't intubate but can ventilate scenarios . Fibreoptic intubation can be a hard skill to teach, gain and keep.In this context, closed claims analysis has declared severe complications such as catastrophic brain insult and death occurred with anticipated difficult airway management and awake intubation. Therefore, it is considerable to develop simple, dependable, safe, and effective intubation devices.