title: Airway Management of the Patient with Maxillofacial Trauma: Review of the Literature and Suggested Clinical Approach.
abstract: According to the Advanced Trauma Life Support recommendations for managing patients with life-threatening injuries, securing the airway is the first task of a primary caregiver. Airway management of patients with maxillofacial trauma is complex and crucial because it can dictate a patient's survival. Securing the airway of patients with maxillofacial trauma is often extremely difficult because the trauma involves the patient's airway and their breathing is compromised. In these patients, mask ventilation and endotracheal intubation are anticipated to be difficult. Additionally, some of these patients may not yet have been cleared of a cervical spine injury, and all are regarded as having a full stomach and having an increased risk of regurgitation and pulmonary aspiration. The requirements of the intended maxillofacial operation may often preclude the use of an oral intubation tube, and alternative methods for securing the airway should be considered before the start of the surgery. In order to improve the clinical outcome of patients with maxillofacial trauma, cooperation between maxillofacial surgeons, anesthesiologists, and trauma specialists is needed. In this review, we discuss the complexity and difficulties of securing the airway of patients with maxillofacial trauma and present our approach for airway management of such patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Rambam Health Care Campus, and the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, 31069 Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Michal
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Barak
authors.affiliation: Trauma Center & Emergency Surgery, Department of General Surgery, Rambam Health Care Campus, 31096 Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Hany
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bahouth
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Rambam Health Care Campus, 31096 Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Yoav
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Leiser
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Baruch Padeh Medical Center, Affiliated to the Faculty of Medicine of Bar-Ilan University, Poriya, 15208 Tiberias, Israel.
authors.forename: Imad
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Abu El-Naaj
mesh_terms: D058109:Airway Management; D006801:Humans; D007442:Intubation, Intratracheal; D008446:Maxillofacial Injuries / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D011182:Postoperative Care; D012121:Respiration, Artificial