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The Role of Flexible Bronchoscopy

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The Difficult Airway
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Abstract

Over the last 45 years flexible bronchoscopy has become the “gold standard” for managing the expected and unexpected difficult airway [1, 2]. Unlike rigid laryngoscopy, intubation using a flexible bronchoscope does not require that an unobstructed straight view from the upper incisors to the larynx be created for intubation. Thus, patients with limited oral apertures, a mobile cervical spine, upper airway abnormalities (tumors, lingual tonsils, etc.), and redundant pharyngeal tissue are some of the classes of difficult airways that are better managed with fiberoptic intubations than with classic direct laryngoscopy.

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Correspondence to David B. Glick .

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Glick, D.B. (2013). The Role of Flexible Bronchoscopy. In: Glick, D., Cooper, R., Ovassapian, A. (eds) The Difficult Airway. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-92849-4_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-92849-4_8

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