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Background:The primary objective of this study was to identify pre-anesthetic airway assessment parameters that would predict Cormack and Lehane grade III and IV laryngoscopy views in pediatric patients undergoing cardiac catheterization procedures. The secondary end points were to identify factors that would contribute to difficult laryngoscope views in this subset of patients.Settings and Design:Prospective observational study performed at a single tertiary cardiac care center.Materials and Methods:199 children below 5 years of age undergoing elective cardiac catheterization were included. Pre-anesthetic airway assessment was done by modified Mallampati grading, lower lip to chin distance [LCD], tragus to mouth angle [TMA], thyromental distance [TMD], neck circumference [NC], and the ratio of height to thyromental distance [RHTMD]. Demographic data including American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status [ASA PS] were recorded for each child. Receiver Operating Characteristic curves were plotted and Areas Under the Curve were measured to identify the best cut off values for each of the airway evaluation method that would predict poor laryngoscopy views as well as assess their accuracy in doing so.Results:LCD, TMD and low body mass index were found to have good sensitivity, specificity and accuracy in predicting Grade III and IV laryngoscope views. ASA PS grade III and above patients had a significantly higher incidence of poor laryngoscope visualization.Conclusions:LCD, TMA, TMD, NC, RHTMD and BMI could all be used combinedly as screening tools during pre-anesthetic airway evaluation for predicting difficult laryngoscope views in children. Among these, LCD, TMD along with low body mass index might have better accuracy.

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Background:The primary aim of this study was to compare the incidence of accidental arterial puncture during right internal jugular vein (RIJV) cannulation with and without ultrasound guidance (USG). The secondary end points were to assess if USG improves the chances of successful first pass cannulation and if BMI has an impact on incidence of arterial puncture and the number of attempts that are to be made for successful cannulation.Settings and Design:Prospective observational study performed at a single tertiary cardiac care center. Material and methods: 255 consecutive adult and pediatric cardiac surgical patients were included. In Group I (n = 124) USG was used for the right internal jugular vein cannulation and in Group II (n = 81) it was not used. There were 135 adult patients and 70 pediatric patients. Statistical analysis: Demographic and categorical data were analyzed using Student ‘t’ test and chi- square test was used for qualitative variables.Results:The overall incidence of accidental arterial puncture in the entire study population was significantly higher when ultrasound guidance was not used (P < 0.001). In subgroup analysis, incidence of arterial puncture was significant in both adult (P = 0.03) and pediatric patients (P < 0.001) without USG. First attempt cannulation was more often possible in pediatric patients under USG (P = 0.03). In adult patients USG did not improve first attempt cannulation except in underweight patients.Conclusions:USG helped in the avoidance of inadvertent arterial puncture during RIJV cannulation and simultaneously improved the chances of first attempt cannulation in pediatric and in underweight adult cardiac surgical patients.