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Researchers analyzed records of patients who were intubated within 1 hour and within 24 hours after arrival during 10 years (1996–2006) at a major trauma center in Maryland. All patients were intubated under the supervision of a dedicated trauma anesthesiologist who followed an emergency airway algorithm.
Of 6088 patients who were intubated within 1 hour of arrival, 6008 (98.7%) were intubated orally, 59 (1.0%) were intubated nasotracheally, and 21 (0.3%) received surgical airways (17 cricothyrotomies and 4 tracheotomies). Data on number of intubation attempts, drugs used, methods used, and other intubation details could not be obtained with the medical record search methodology used in the study. The authors estimated that an additional 26,…