The Use of Apneic Oxygenation During Prolonged Intubation in Pediatric Patients: a Randomized Clinical Trial

Patient demographics (age, height and weight) will be collected for 546 consecutive patients presenting for dental restoration under general anesthesia. The baseline saturation will be recorded. The induction of anesthesia will be standardized for all patients. All patients will undergo an inhalational induction administered by face mask. After inserting an intravenous (IV) line, rocuronium will be administered. Intravenous propofol and fentanyl could be added at the discretion of the anesthesiologist. The patients will be mask ventilated then be with a mixture of Air/Oxygen (O2) to achieve an FiO2 of 0.3 for 3 minutes after the administration of rocuronium.

Patients will be randomly assigned to one of three groups for the purpose of airway management: 1) direct laryngoscopy for nasotracheal intubation without oxygen insufflation (DL group); 2) direct laryngoscopy for nasotracheal intubation with oxygen insufflation (DLO2 Group); and 3) nasotracheal intubation using the Truview PCD video laryngoscope (VL Group). Computer-generated treatment allocations (using the PLAN procedure in SAS statistical software, using random-sized blocks) will be maintained in sequentially numbered sealed envelopes that will be opened after consent is obtained. The laryngoscopy and intubations will be performed by the study investigators who are faculty anesthesiologists or by the mid-level or resident or fellow working with them.

The study will be stopped when:

• the patient will be intubated and a CO2 trace is obtained on the capnography or
• if the patient desaturates to 90%
• or if the patient shows signs of cardiac instability (ectopic beats, arrhythmia or hypotension)

Randomized groups will be compared for balance on potentially confounding baseline variables using descriptive statistics. Primary outcome: In the primary hypothesis, desaturation will be characterized using both time to 1% saturation drop from the baseline and the rate (slope) of desaturation after an initial 1% drop. We will consider a given intubation technique (DLO2 or VL) better than DL on controlling saturation if found noninferior (i.e., not worse) on both outcomes and superior on at least one of the outcomes. Thus our primary hypothesis will be assessed in a joint hypothesis testing framework described by Mascha and Turan. We a-priori define the non-inferiority delta for the outcome time to 1% drop as 5 seconds (or 1.05 if using hazard ratio) and the slope delta as 0.05 percent per second.