Prediction of Endotracheal Tube Size for Korean Children with Broselow Tape

Yoen, Jae Ho; Choi, Hyuk Joong; Kang, Bo Seung; Kim, Dong Won; Im, Tai Ho

Abstract

PURPOSE: Broselow Tape was designed to estimate endotracheal tube size on the basis of the body length of emergency pediatric patients. It was validated from the United States. We assess the accuracy of the Broselow Tape method for the prediction of endotracheal tube (ETT) size in Korean children.
METHODS
We reviewed pediatric anesthetic charts at a tertiary care hospital for one year, and in addition we collected data on gender, age, height, weight and fifth fingernail width for children visiting two tertiary emergency departments over four months. The inclusion criteria were that patients were American System of Anesthesiology (ASA) grade I or II, and that they were within the measuring range of Broselow Tape. The comparison of two data pairs was by cluster analysis and included stratification based on propensity scores, adjusting, and grouping.
RESULTS
Five hundred ninety-seven children and 537 pediatric anesthetic charts were included in this study. The mean ETT size as predicted by the Browslow tape method and as actually intubated were 5.12 mm and 5.11 mm (p=0.3851), respectively. The mean ETT size predicted by the 5th fingernail-width method and the age-based method were 5.48 mm (p<0.0001) and 4.95 mm (p<0.001).
CONCLUSION
There was no difference between the ETT size predicted by Browslow tape method and actual tube size. We conclude that Broselow Tape can be used to predict ETT size for Korean children.