Use and Outcomes of Nasotracheal Intubation Among Patients Requiring Mechanical Ventilation Across U.S. PICUs

journals.lww.com September 8, 2020

Nasotracheal intubation is used in a minority of U.S. PICUs and mainly among young cardiac patients. Nasotracheal intubation is associated with a lower rate of unplanned extubations in this patient population.

Future prospective studies analyzing the benefits and complications of nasotracheal versus orotracheal intubation in pediatric patients requiring mechanical ventilation are indicated.

Among the 121 PICUs included in the study, 64 PICUs (53%) had zero nasotracheal intubations during the reviewed time period.

There were 12,088 endotracheal intubations analyzed, and 680 of them (5.6%) were nasotracheal.