Treatment of foreign body obstruction of the upper airway

The treatment of foreign body obstruction of the upper airway has been the subject of considerable attention and controversy. Current recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association include the use of back blows, abdominal thrusts (Heimlich maneuver) or chest thrusts (or both) and finger probes, until definitive therapy by trained medical and paramedical personnel becomes available. Nevertheless, a number of authorities on this subject have claimed that these approaches are dangerous, and that abdominal thrusts should be the first and only first-aid technique used in this situation. There are only limited data on which to make recommendations regarding this issue. Clinical evidence is scanty and of a highly anecdotal and unscientific nature. The data that are available suggest that a combination of maneuvers is in fact preferable to any single maneuver. Experimental physiologic data on both humans and animals tend to support this concept and suggest that back blows, which generate high initial pressures, may dislodge objects from the larynx enough to allow subsequent thrust maneuvers, which generate more sustained increases in intrathoracic pressure, to move the object out of the larynx. At this time, in the absence of definitive data, it seems reasonable to teach as many lay citizens as possible to recognize upper airway obstruction due to foreign body and to perform any and all of these techniques (preferably in combination), as well as external cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) where appropriate, on choking victims.