Video laryngoscopy in prehospital emergency medicine

Endotracheal intubation in a prehospital emergency situation represents the most challenging task for emergency physicians in the field of securing the airway. Video laryngoscopy can be utilized to optimize visualization of the airway, particularly under circumstances where external patient features or mission conditions indicate the presence of a difficult airway, to increase the chance of success for intubation and therefore patient safety. For the prehospital use under difficult intubation conditions it would appear particularly appropriate to utilize Macintosh-based video laryngoscopes. For the few isolated cases where for anatomical reasons a Macintosh-based video laryngoscope does not provide sufficient visualization of the glottis, the possibility to change to a more curved spatula blade within the same video laryngoscope system with no substantial time delay is an additional advantage.