[Establishment of a system of using cephalometrics to predict difficult intubation]

Difficult airway is one of the main problems which attract much attention from the anesthesiologists, many clinical standards are used to predict the patient's airway, but the investigation of using radiological measurements to predict difficult intubation is seldom carried out. This study combined the previous researches to establish a system of using cephalometrics to predict difficult intubation.

Patients who underwent general anesthesia were involved with preoperative cephalometric examination. The way to take radiographs was as follows: X-ray cephalometric were casted from left to right, parameters were 80kV, 10mA, the time of exposal was 2 seconds. All of the X-ray cephalometric radiographs were scanned into computer, then measured with the software of "CASSOS 2001".

22 cephalometric parameters including soft tissues, hard tissues, airway space and hyoid could be measured.

X-ray cephalometric radiography may achieve difficult intubation prediction, but the efficiency and accuracy of this technique need further evaluation.