title: Complications of tracheal intubation in critically ill pediatric cancer patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The oncologists are treating cancer more aggressively, leading to increase in number of pediatric admissions to the ICU. Due to anatomical and physiological differences, pediatric patients are at high risk of complications during intubation. We evaluated the incidence of complications during intubations in pediatric patients in our ICU.
  
  
  METHODS
  We performed retrospective analysis of complications occurring during intubation in 42 pediatric patients. All intubations were orotracheal. We recorded number of attempts at intubation, need for use of intubation adjuncts and complications during laryngoscopy and intubation. The incidence of difficult intubation, hypoxia, and severe cardiovascular collapse was also noted.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Complications occurred during 13 (31%) intubations. Hypoxia and severe cardiovascular collapse occurred in during 7 (16.7%) intubations each, while 4 patients (9.5%) (n=4) had cardiac arrest during intubation. Thirty three (78.6%) intubations were successful in first attempt and difficult intubation was recorded in 4 patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Critically ill pediatric cancer patients have a high rate of complications during intubation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain, Division of Critical Care Medicine, Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Suhail Sarwar
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Siddiqui
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain, Division of Critical Care Medicine, Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Janarthanan
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain, Division of Critical Care Medicine, Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: M M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Harish
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain, Division of Critical Care Medicine, Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Harish
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chaudhari
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain, Division of Critical Care Medicine, Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: R Natesh
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Prabu
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain, Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Jigeeshu V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Divatia
authors.affiliation: Department of Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain, Division of Critical Care Medicine, Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Atul Prabhakar
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Kulkarni
keywords: Airway; airway complications; laryngoscopy; pediatric cancer; tracheal intubation