Towards evidence-based emergency medicine: best BETs from the Manchester Royal Infirmary. BET 1: Cricoid pressure in emergency rapid sequence induction.

A short-cut review was carried out to establish whether the application of cricoid pressure during the induction of general anaesthesia reduced the incidence of regurgitation and aspiration of gastric contents. One good quality review article, two studies and two abstracts provided the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The authors, date and country of publication, patient group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, results and study weaknesses of these best papers are tabulated (table 1). It is concluded that although there is a theoretical advantage to providing cricoid pressure during induction, there is little evidence of any benefit at this time.