European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

ENDOTRACHEAL TUBE CUFF PRESSURE MONITORING- MANUAL PALPATION METHOD VS. MANOMETER READINGS

*Dr. Anuj Dubey, Dr. Raman Kesharwani, Dr. Prashant Sharma, Dr. Sheetal Songir, Dr. Anupam Pandey

ABSTRACT

Endotracheal tube (ETT) is commonly used for ventilating the patients in OT during administration of general anaesthesia. The adequate ETT cuff pressure for maintaining tracheal mucosal perfusion should be in the range of 20-30 cmH2O. So our aim was to compare the endotracheal tube cuff pressure monitoring in general anaesthesia while using finger palpation method OR continuous manometer reading monitoring method, as well as comparision of post operative complications in both methods. 60 patients were randomly selected of either sex and age between 20 and 60 yrs of ASA grade I/II who were posted for routine surgery under general anesthesia. Patients belonging above ASA grade 3 & having any other associated disease were excluded. Our study demonstrates that even experienced anesthesiologists were unable to inflate an ETT cuff to a safe pressure limit. The manual methods as palpation of pilot balloon and disappearance of audible air leak are inaccurate methods to assess adequate ETT cuff pressure and most of the time it resulted in cuff pressure more than the safe limit. So, we concluded that ETT cuff pressure was significantly high when endotracheal tube cuff was checked manually by finger palpation method. Therefore, to avoid the known complications of high endotracheal tube cuff pressure, the use of ETT cuff pressure controller device is strongly recommended for keeping the pressure within the recommended levels.

Keywords: Endotracheal Tube Cuff Pressure, Palpation Method, Manometer Monitoring, 20-30 cmH2O.