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Cricothyrotomy is required as a rescue technique in approximately 1% of emergency department intubations. Two methods are widely recommended: open surgical technique (OST) and percutaneous Seldinger technique (PST). Investigators in Austria evaluated the performance of cricothyroidotomy by emergency physicians who received brief training in the two techniques. Only one of the EPs had previously performed a cricothyroidotomy.
After attending a 30-minute training session without audiovisual aids, 20 EPs each performed five cricothyroidotomies by each method (in random order) over a 4-month period; the procedures were performed on 200 refrigerated fresh cadavers. Results from 13 cadavers were excluded from the analysis because of incomplete dat…