Prehospital Use of the Esophageal Tracheal Combitube Supraglottic Airway Device: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Abstract

Background: In the province of Quebec (Canada), paramedics use the esophageal tracheal Combitube (ETC) for prehospital airway management.

Objectives: Our main objective was to determine the proportion of patients with successful ventilation achieved after ETC use. Our secondary aim was to determine the number of ETC insertion attempts required to ventilate the patient.

Method: This is a retrospective cohort study. All patients who had ≥1 attempt to insert an ETC during prehospital care between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2018 were included. Prehospital and in-hospital data were extracted. Successful ventilation was defined as thorax elevation, lung sounds on chest auscultation, or positive end-tidal capnography after ETC insertion.

Results: A total of 580 emergency medical services interventions (99.3% cardiac arrests) were included. Most patients were men (62.5%) with a mean age 67.0 years (SD 17.6 years), and 35 (13.1%) of the 298 patients transported to emergency department survived to hospital discharge. Sufficient information to determine whether ventilation was successful or not was available for 515 interventions. Ventilation was achieved during 427 (82.7%) of these interventions. The number of ETC insertion attempts was available for 349 of the 427 successful ETC use. Overall, the first insertion resulted in successful ventilation during 294 interventions for an overall proportion of first-pass success ranging between 57.1% and 72.1%.

Conclusion: Proportions of successful ventilation and ETC first-pass success are lower than those reported in the literature with supraglottic airway devices. The reasons explaining these lower rates and their impact on patient-centered outcomes need to be studied.

Keywords: Combitube; cardiac arrest; prehospital; supraglottic airway device.