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To assess airway management of trauma patients in a physician-led prehospital system in England, researchers conducted a retrospective database review of 7256 prehospital trauma intubations from 1991 to 2012.
Forty-six patients (0.6%) received primary surgical cricothyroidotomy. Of the remaining patients, intubation was successful in 99.3%. Among the 52 patients who could not be intubated, 42 (80.7%) underwent rescue cricothyroidotomy; 9 had a supraglottic airway placed, with 2 subsequently receiving a cricothyroidotomy; and 1 breathed with support of a bag-valve-mask. Nonanesthetist physicians had a statistically higher rate of failed intubation than anesthetists (0.9% vs. 0.4%) and were twice as likely to perform a rescue airway interventi…