Intubations and airway management: An overview of Hassles through third millennium

The placement of a tube into a patient's trachea "the intubation" as we call is not as simple as it looks. It is a very tricky and tedious maneuver that entails skills to assess and perform. Nevertheless, often this is left to the chores of inefficient hands due to a paucity of the availability of experts. They seldom are able to complete the task and often wind up calling the attention of the unit. The present review is an attempt to describe the need to undertake intubation, the procedures and techniques, the complications, including morbidity and mortality and airway management. This overview includes explicit descriptions of the difficult airway which represents multifaceted interface amid patient factors, clinical setting, and skills of the practitioner.

To accomplish the target, peer-reviewed English language articles published during third millennium up to 2013 were selected from Pub Med, Pub Med Central, Science Direct, Up-to-date, Med Line, comprehensive databases, Cochrane library, and the Internet (Google, Yahoo).

The review constituted a systematic search of literature on the requirements that necessitate the practice of intubation, different techniques that facilitate easy conduct of procedure, the complications, including, morbidity and mortality, and the airway management.

Recording every single detail has been beyond the scope of this review, however; some aspects have been wrapped up in nutshell. Some areas of the review are too basic which the medics are well aware of and knowledgeable. Nevertheless, these are difficult to be dispensed with in consideration of their source to the awareness of a common man and a great majority of the patients.