Evaluation of the airway in the children.

Abstract

Endotracheal intubation has become a common practice in modern anesthesiology. Nevertheless, sometimes it is surprisingly difficult or impossible to carry it out, even by experimented hands. For that reason it is necessary to predict the difficulty or easiness offered by every patient's anatomical characteristics. In children, due to the lack of cooperation during the physical examination and of specific tests that could predict a difficult airway, the evaluation differs from the adults' evaluation.
In this revision we describe the anatomic and physiologic characteristics of the child's respiratory system of interest for anesthesiologists and pointing at the elements that have to be taken into account when evaluating the pediatric patient's airways.