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As many as 1% of emergency department intubations end up as a "failed airway" (unable to intubate the patient). One tool developed to determine which patients might pose airway management difficulties is the LEMON method. The authors of this study from Scotland developed an airway assessment score based on this method and determined the score's utility in predicting difficult airways in the ED. They studied 156 patients who were intubated successfully in a single ED between June 2002 and September 2003.
The score, with a maximum of 10 points, was calculated by assigning 1 point for each of the following LEMON criteria:
L=Look externally (facial trauma, large incisors, beard or moustache, and large tongue)
E=Evaluate the 3-3-2 rule (incisor dis…