Bag-Mask Ventilation: One or Two Hands?

The two-handed mask technique outperformed the one-handed “EC-clamp” method.

Bag-mask ventilation can be performed with the one-handed “EC-clamp” technique (small finger at the angle of the mandible, ring and long fingers on the ramus, index finger and thumb forming a “C” shape over the mask) or with a two-handed jaw-thrust technique (fingers along the angle and ramus of the mandible, thumbs pressing on the mask). The two techniques have not been systematically compared. In a randomized crossover trial, researchers compared three measures of effectiveness of mask ventilation with the two techniques in 42 elective surgery patients (mean age, 56) at an academic hospital in Wisconsin.

After induction of anesthesia with propofol and insertion of an oropharyngeal airway, each patient was mechanically ventilated with both …

Reviewing Authors

Emily L. Brown, MD

Ron M. Walls, MD, FRCPC, FAAEM

Disclosures

Speaker's bureauAirway Management Education Center, LLC

EquityAirway Management Education Center, LLC

Grant / Research supportAgency for Health Care Research and Quality

Editorial boardsManual of Emergency Airway Management; Rosen's Emergency Medicine; UpToDate; Scientific American Medicine