Objective:

To correlate the presence of laryngeal stridor with the diameter of the vocal cord air column through airway ultrasound in patients intubated in the ICU.

Material and methods:

Descriptive. The diameter of the vocal cord air column was measured with linear ultrasound in weaning patients, five groups were taken according to the diameter: < 5 mm, 5.1-5.5 mm, 5.5-6.0 mm, 6.1-6.4 and > 6.5 mm. The presence or absence of laryngeal stridor was observed. Statistical analysis was carried out, such as frequencies and percentages, with variables of a quantitative type, measures of central tendency, mean, mode, and standard deviation were determined.

Results:

Thirty patients were included, the mean age was 39.5 years, a standard deviation of 18.666, 78.6% of the patients remained intubated for a period of 2-5 days, 83.3% presented successful extubation, five presented failure to extubation, two of them due to laryngeal stridor, which corresponded to 6.7% with a diameter of 5.1-5.5 mm., Pearson 0.48.

Conclusions:

The measurement of the diameter of the vocal cord air column is a useful tool for the intensivist physician as a predictor of laryngeal stridor after extubation.