A clinical consideration of submental intubation at oral and maxillofacial surgery

ABSTRACT

decision of what route we will select for endotracheal intubation at open reduction of oral and maxillofacial trauma. In the patients with fractures of multiple facial bones combined with fracture of cranial basal bone, intermaxillary fixation makes oro-endotracheal intubation impossible. And the possibility of injury to the fracture site of cranial basal bone and the impossibility of reconstruction of nasoorbito- ethmoidal(NOE) complex fractures also make the naso-endotracheal intubation difficult. But it is not easy to select the tracheostomy because of its several complications and abhorrences. For above reason, Altemir introduced submental route for endotracheal intubation as new technique in 1986 and Green etc. modified this technique in 1996. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the efficiency of submental route for endotracheal intubation after experience of 10-clinical cases for variabe reasons with review of articles.