The second World Anaesthetic Meeting was held in Amsterdam in November. This combined meeting of the Society for Airway Management (USA), the Difficult Airway Society (UK), and the European Airway Management Society was attending by approximately 125 delegates from Australia and New Zealand. Several ANZCA members presented within the scientific and workshop programs.
Some highlights of the meeting are presented below.
Guidelines/Major Projects
The DAS awake tracheal intubation guidelines is a well written and sensible approach to awake intubation and represents the culmination of best practice from the literature, experts and patients. The group introduced the concept of using Alexa as a voice activated cognitive aid during their presentation.
Project for the Universal Management of Airways (PUMA) was launched. The group spoke to their aims and purpose and will follow with the release of 4 papers of guidelines/recommendations in Anaesthesia in 2020.
The editors of 5 top anaesthesia journals were invited to present the 5 most significant airway articles from their respective journals since the last WAMM (2015-2019). Click here to access the links to these articles.
Themes
Awake videolaryngoscopy – several presenters and poster submissions highlighted this as a growing technique. It offers some advantages over awake intubation with a flexible bronchoscope, including an improved view with blood in the airway and creating space more in the presence of a supraglottic mass. A group from Royal Sussex presented a well made instructional video on the technique.
High flow nasal oxygen/THRIVE in airway management and airway surgery remained topical. Inconsistencies remain in how the experts use this with airway laser surgery. Several presenters touched on opportunities to increase use during apnoeic oxygenation particularly in obstetric patients and THRIVE featured in case reports and case series in the poster section.
International airway cases – 5 complex obstructing airway cases were presented to an expert panel. The cases were transferrable to Australian and New Zealand practice and ANZCA members felt our practice is in keeping with global thinking on how to approach challenging airways.
WAMM supported donations to the Global Capnography Project and provided an update on the program.
No trace wrong place campaign from RCOA was touched on by several presenters as was the accidental extubation safety campaign from the US based patient safety movement group.
Equipment
Optiflow nasal cannula with a CO2 sampling line are now available
Several options for drivable bougies or hybrid bougie/stylets to combat the difficulties that may occur with intubation when using a hyperangulated videolaryngoscope blade were on display in the trade hall.