Sajjad Raza, Liaqat Ali, Asif Nadeem.
Intubation in Obese patients; Diagnostic Accuracy of Neck Circumference To Thyromental Distance Ratio for Difficult Intubation in Obese patients.
Professional Med J Jan ;25(7):1108-11.

Objectives: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of ratio of neck circumference to thyromental distance to predict the difficult intubation in obese patients by using Intubation difficulty scale as gold standard. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Place and Duration of Study: Jinnah Hospital, Department of Anesthesia, Lahore from August 2013 to July 2014. Methodology: 250 patients were included. Ratio of neck circumference to thyromental distance was measured during preoperative assessment in all patients. Results: There were 59.2% males and 40.8% females with mean age of patients was 37.13+11.64 years. 19.2% patients showed difficult intubation and 80.8% easy. Sensitivity of NC/TM was 89.58% and Specificity 72.77% with positive predictive value of 43.88% and Negative predictive value of 96.71%. Conclusion: Neck circumference to thyromental distance ratio is sensitive method for determining the difficult intubation among obese patients.

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