Summary: Novel coronavirus 2019 is a single‐stranded, ribonucleic acid virus that has led to an international pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019. Clinical data from the Chinese outbreak have been reported, but experiences and recommendations from clinical practice during the Italian outbreak have not. We report the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak on regional and national healthcare infrastructure. We also report on recommendations based on clinical experiences of managing patients throughout Italy. In particular, we describe key elements of clinical management, including: safe oxygen therapy; airway management; personal protective equipment; and non‐technical aspects of caring for patients diagnosed with coronavirus disease 2019. Only through planning, training and team working will clinicians and healthcare systems be best placed to deal with the many complex implications of this new pandemic.

Unpredictable difficult laryngoscopy remains a challenge for anaesthesiologists, especially if difficult ventilation occurs during standard laryngoscopy. Accurate airway assessment should always be performed, but the common clinical screening tests have shown low sensitivity and specificity with a limited predictive value. Ultrasound-based airway assessment has been proposed recently as a useful, simple, noninvasive bedside tool as an adjunct to clinical methods, but to date, few studies are available about the potential role of ultrasound in difficult airway evaluation, and these are mostly limited to specific groups of patients. The aim of this study was to determine the correlation between the sonographic measurements of anterior cervical soft tissues thickness and Cormack–Lehane grade view at direct laryngoscopy in patients with normal clinical screening tests. Prospective, single blinded, observational study. Operating theatre of a teaching hospital from May 2017 to September 2017. A total of 301 patients at least 18 years of age undergoing elective surgery under general anaesthesia with tracheal intubation were included in the study. Pre-operative evaluation was performed before surgery, demographic variables were collected and clinical screening tests to predict a difficult airway were performed. Patients with predicted difficult intubation were excluded. A 10 to 13-MHz linear ultrasound transducer was placed in the transverse plane and the thickness of the anterior cervical soft tissues was measured at two levels [thyrohyoid membrane (pre-epiglottic space) and vocal cords (laryngeal inlet)] with the patient's head in a neutral position. At each level, the distance from the skin in the median axis and the surrounding area was measured. The laryngoscopic view was graded by a different anaesthetist with more than 5 years of experience with direct laryngoscopy, blinded to the ultrasound assessments. The ‘pre-epiglottic space thickness’ at the level of thyrohyoid membrane was measured as the median distance from skin to epiglottis (mDSE) and the pre-epiglottic area was calculated; the mDSE cut-off value of 2.54 cm (sensitivity 82%, specificity 91%) and the pre-epiglottic area cut-off value of 5.04 cm2 (sensitivity 85%, specificity 88%) were the best predictors of a Cormack–Lehane grade at least 2b at direct laryngoscopy and of difficult intubation. The cut-off value of mDSE showed greater sensitivity in female patients (94 vs. 86%) and greater specificity in male patients (92 vs. 83%). No correlation was found between difficult laryngoscopy and ultrasound assessments at the level of the vocal cords. Airways ultrasounds might be considered as a predictor of restricted/difficult laryngoscopy and unpredicted difficult intubation. CERM 2016-0405.

Awake fiberoptic intubation is one of the recommended strategies for surgical patients with anticipated difficult airway, especially when concurrent difficult ventilation is expected. We performed the first systematic review of randomized controlled trials assessing different protocols for awake fiberoptic intubation in anticipated difficult airway, including studies investigating elective awake fiberoptic intubation for scheduled surgery; randomized controlled trials comparing different methods for performing awake fiberoptic intubation; and adult patients with anticipated difficult airway. We excluded studies in the nonoperating theater settings, randomized controlled trials comparing awake fiberoptic intubation with other techniques, and studies based on simulation. Primary outcomes were success rate and death; secondary outcomes were major adverse events. Thirty-seven randomized controlled trials evaluating 2045 patients and 4 areas were identified: premedication, local anesthesia, sedation, and ancillary techniques to facilitate awake fiberoptic intubation. Quality of evidence was moderate–low and based on small-sampled randomized controlled trials. Overall, 12 of 2045 intubation failures (0.59%) and 7 of 2045 severe adverse events (0.34%) occurred, with no permanent consequences or death. All evaluated methods to achieve local anesthesia performed similarly well. No differences were observed in success rate with different sedatives. Dexmedetomidine resulted in fewer desaturation episodes compared to propofol and opioids with or without midazolam (relative risk, 0.51 [95% CI, 0.28–0.95]; P = .03); occurrence of desaturation was similar with remifentanil versus propofol, while incidence of apnoea was lower with sevoflurane versus propofol (relative risk, 0.43 [95% CI, 0.22–0.81]; P = .01). A high degree of efficacy and safety was observed with minimal differences among different protocols; dexmedetomidine might offer a better safety profile compared to other sedatives.