Nasal-tragus length for estimating optimal insertion depth of endotracheal tube in Thai neonates

Abstract

© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc. Objective: To develop a nasal-tragus length (NTL)-based table for estimating the endotracheal tube (ETT) insertion depth. Study design: A prospective study of 110 Thai neonates was conducted in a NICU in Bangkok, Thailand. The correlation between the optimal insertion depth (Opt-Depth) and NTL was determined, and then an NTL-based table for estimating ETT depth was developed. The accuracy of using various methods in estimating ETT depth was compared. Results: A strong correlation between Opt-Depth and NTL was found (r = 0.897, p < 0.001). There was no significant difference between ETT depth estimated by the NTL-based table and Opt-Depth [mean difference (95% CI) −0.75 (−12.11 to 10.61) mm, p = 0.22]. The accuracies of using NTL + 1, NTL-based, GA-based, and BW-based tables for estimating ETT depth were 32.7%, 55.5%, 61.8%, and 52.7%, respectively. Conclusion: Our NTL-based table for estimating the ETT depth had an acceptable accuracy while using “NTL + 1” resulted in overestimating ETT depth.