Cardiac arrest complicating emergency airway management

Emergency airway management and specifically intubation can be associated with significant adverse events, related to the airway itself (failed intubation, oesophageal intubation and hypoxia being amongst the most common), or related to haemodynamic instability, with post intubation hypotension being a recognised complication.

Cardiac arrest is associated with emergency intubation and occurs in about in about 2.4% of cases, which is far more common than the recognised 1 in 10,000(1) events during elective anaesthesia.

Is it possible to better predict these patients and thus take steps to ensure we avoid this?

Heffner et al (2) conducted this study ” to identify the incidence of clinical factors associated with peri-intubation CA (cardiac arrest) during emergency airway management”