Effect of the LEMON method in predicting patients with difficult airway / 临床麻醉学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the effect of the LEMON method in predicting difficult air-way.Methods A total of 1 528 patients scheduled for elective surgery requiring tracheal intubation under general anaesthesia,680 males and 848 females,aged 18-83 years,ASA physical status Ⅰ orⅡ,were enrolled in the study.We used the LEMON method to assess airway conditions before an-aesthesia and recorded the scores.The primary end point was difficult tracheal intubation.The sec-ondary end point was difficult laryngoscopy.Receiver operating characteristic (ROC)curve analysis and the area under the curve (AUC)were used to evaluate the clinical effect of the LEMON mothod. Results There were 37 cases with difficult tracheal intubation and 106 cases with difficult laryngosco-py.The incidence of difficult tracheal intubation and difficult laryngoscopy were 2.4% and 6.9%,re-spectively.The area under the curve of the LEMON method for predicting difficult laryngoscopy and difficult tracheal intubation were 0.884 (95% CI 0.867-0.899)and 0.934 (95% CI 0.921-0.946), respectively.Conclusion The LEMON method has good clinical effect in predicting difficult airway.