Chirurgische Atemwegssicherung – Empfehlungen und Stolpersteine

Establishing a safe airway is a lifesaving skill in prehospital emergency care medicine. In rare cases this includes establishing a surgical airway.

Due to lack of regular necessity of establishing a surgical airway in daily practice, clinicians normally do not become confident with the procedure. This article aims to convey background knowledge and theoretical basics required for successful surgical airway establishment in adult prehospital patients.

We describe the relevant anatomy, discuss the indication for establishing a prehospital surgical airway and the preferred approach considering the current guidelines and available literature. Based on that, we present a step-by-step recommendation for conducting a surgical cricothyroidotomy and present possible pitfalls to increase the competency with this rare invasive measure.