Introduction:

Ultrasound imaging is a promising tool for pre-anesthetic assessment of the airway.

Objective:

To evaluate the concordance of the ultrasound airway assessment versus traditional scales and its relationship with complications during orotracheal intubation.

Material y methods:

An observational, cross-sectional, prospective study performed in patients scheduled for surgery under general anesthesia. In the pre-anesthetic consultation, they were assessed with predictive scales of difficult intubation (USG group [n = 16] and T group [n = 19]) and in the patients of the USG group, ultrasonographic measurements of difficult intubation were performed. The frequency of complications was recorded during intubation.

Results:

The concordance of difficult airway ultrasound findings with Mallampati III/IV and Cormack-Lehane III/IV was 43.8-62.5%. Oral cavity lesions occurred in 0% of the USG group and in 15.8% of the T group (p = 0.096). The incidence of pharyngeal pain was 25% in the USG group and 31.6% in the T group (p = 0.723).

Conclusions:

The concordance of non-visible hyoid bone and increased tongue thickness with traditional difficult airway scales was poor. But when the airway was assessed preoperatively with the US, there was a trend towards a lower frequency of lesions of the oral cavity.