[Difficult intubations. A prospective study].

A prospective tubing of tracheal tubing in view of general anesthia was performed in 441 adults undergoing scheduled surgery. Before surgery, the anesthesists and ENT specialists tried to independently predict the cases of difficult tubing, according to different criteria. Tubing actually was difficult in 38 patients (8.6ù) instead of the 21 (55.2%) expected by the ENT specialists and/or the anesthesists. These difficulties were solved by bronchoscopy, which allowed tubing to be performed with a guide-probe (3 cas), by scheduled fiberendoscopy (6), tracheotomy (1), nasotracheal tubing (1), spontaneous ventilation (2), and orotracheal tubing in 25 cases. Current knowledge of the predictive criteria is incomplete: anesthesists must be aware of the assistance techniques required in case of difficult tubing in a non-ENT context.