J Anesth Perioper Med. 2018;5(5):253-258. https://doi.org/10.24015/ebcmed.japm.2018.0091
From the Department of Anesthesiology, Laboratory of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, Translational Neuroscience Center, West-China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
*Contributed equally to this work.
Correspondence to Dr. Chaoran Wu at chaoranwu@126.com.
EBCMED ID: ebcmed.japm.2018.0091 DOI: 10.24015/ebcmed.japm.2018.0091
Aim of review
This review aimed to present an overview of reports and current opinions regarding the application of fiberoptic bronchoscopy (FOB) in the positioning of doublelumen endobronchial tube (DLT), and to compare the respective merits and demerits of FOB and the blind method.
Methods
Related literature was retrieved from the databases, including PubMed, Embase, Ovid Medline, ScienceDirect, Cochrane databases, and SpringerLink using the keywords of “double lumen tube” or “lung separation” or “one lung ventilation” and “auscultation” combined with “fiberoptic bronchoscopy” from inception to April 1, 2018. The retrieved literature was then carefully read by the authors and summarized with caution.
Recent findings
The correct position of DLT was of great importance, since a misplaced or improperly used tube could imperil any operation or even lead to a serious catastrophe. However, the conventional blind way still prevailed in most institutions. By contrast, FOB was superior in correctly positioning a DLT, reducing airway injury, shortening the intubation time and contributing to a rapid diagnosis of abnormal ventilation.
Summary
FOB should be applied as a routine in the positioning of DLT after taking into account the importance of correct DLT positioning in the one-lung ventilation and the potential critical sequelaes induced by the considerable number of malpositions. (Funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.)
Article Type
Review Article
Declaration of Interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by grants (No. 81271238 and 81471141) from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
This is an open-access article, published by Evidence Based Communications (EBC). This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format for any lawful purpose. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.