Comparison of Cardiovascular Responses to Fiberoptic Orotracheal and Nasotracheal Intubation in Children

Objective To compare cardiovascular responses to fiberoptic orotracheal and nasotracheal intubation in children.Methods Sixty-five American Society of Anesthesiologist physical status grade Ⅰ children scheduled for elective plastic surgery under general anesthesia were randomly allocated to orotracheal intubation group(n=36) and nasotracheal intubation group(n=29).After standard intravenous anesthetic induction,the fiberoptic intubation was performed.Noninvasive blood pressure(BP) and heart rate(HR) were recor-ded before(baseline values) and after anesthetic induction,at intubation and 5-minute period after intubation with 1 minute interval.The intubation time was also recorded.Results The intubation time was significantly longer in nasotracheal intubation group than that in orotracheal intubation group(P0.05).Fiberoptic tracheal intubation caused significant increases in BP and HR in 2 groups compared to the baseline values(all P0.05).Pressor and tachycardiac responses to nasotracheal intubation were less and of a shorter duration than those to orotracheal intubation.BP and HR at intubation and their maximal values during the observation were significantly greater in orotracheal intubation group than those in nasotracheal intubation group(P0.05).Conclusions Both fiberoptic orotracheal and nasotracheal intubation can cause significant increases of BP and HR in children.But the cardiovascular responses to fiberoptic orotracheal intubation is significantly stronger than those to fiberoptic nasotracheal intubation.