Should videolaryngoscopy be the standard of care for routine tracheal intubation in obese adults?

In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Anesthesia, Hoshijima and colleagues [1] report the results of a meta-analysis comparing the use of traditional direct laryngoscopy (DL) with the Macintosh blade to videolaryngoscopy (VL) in obese adult patients. The authors report improvements in glottic visualization, number of intubation attempts, and intubation success when VL is used as the first-line tracheal intubation method versus Macintosh DL. The results of this meta-analysis, together with those of a recent Cochrane review on VL in the general adult population by Lewis and colleagues [2] raise the question of whether VL should be the overall first-line approach to intubate the trachea in all patients.
Source: Journal of Clinical Anesthesia - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Editorial Source Type: research