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Awake intubation by emergency physicians feasible

Incidence and Outcomes of Emergency Physician-Performed Awake Intubations: A Report From the Airway Interventions Registry and Observational Database
Annals of Emergency Medicine · Added 27 July 2026

In this preliminary single-center study, emergency physicians performed awake intubation with relatively high incidence, high overall success, and low rates of major adverse events.

Study type

Other

Design

Prospective single-centre airway registry analysis

Participants

87 adult awake intubations among 1,213 ED intubations over 10 years

Main finding

7.2% of intubations were awake intubations; success without major adverse event 92% (95% CI 86–98%), first-pass success 71%, RSI conversion 6.9%; critical hypoxaemia 3%, critical hypotension 2%, cardiac arrest 2%.

Caveat

Single tertiary-centre study; small numbers and no comparator group

Bottom line

Context only

Learning goal

Strengthen my judgement on when awake intubation offers a safer prehospital airway strategy in predicted difficult airways.

More

• Topic: Airway & ventilation
• Daily scan: 27 July 2026

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