Practical advance in obtaining an emergency airway via cricothyroidotomy.

By the time a cricothyroidotomy is deemed necessary, the patient is in critical need of an emergency airway before anoxic damage ensues. Two things are necessary for the delivery of the requisite oxygen. First, an airway must be rapidly established. Second, the airway must be large enough to facilitate ventilation. Present methods for emergency cricothyroidotomy include needle cricothyroidotomy, which suffers from difficulties in both establishment and ventilation. We describe here a practical and widely available method for establishing a timely effective airway that has been used successfully for five patients since 1992.