Thursday March 15, 2007
What's the right length of endotracheal tube (ETT) for oral intubation?

As a gold standard the only way to make sure that tip of ETT is atleast 2 cm away from carina (or at appropriate place) is via chest X-ray. But there are many bedside quick tricks/formulae described in literature. One such formula 1 which also found to have good clinical correlation, is

ETT length (incisors to midpoint of trachea, cm) = patient's height (cm)/10+5

Like, if patient's height is 170 cm, ETT should be taped at

170/10 + 5 = 22 cm


Another trick is to have ETT's cuff palpable at sternal notch, a technique described about 40 years ago ! 2 .


Related previous pearl:
Movement of endotracheal tube (ETT) with neck



Reference:

1. Anaesthesia Intensive Care 1992; 20:156;
2. Anesthesiology 1964; 25:169