Saturday, May 26, 2007

Saturday May 26, 2007
Bedside trick - suspecting tracheal aspiration !


One quick method of suspecting tracheal aspiration or atleast ruling out tracheal aspiration is checking glucose concentration by regular bedside glucose meters. A glucose concentration of more than 20 mg/dl of bloodless tracheal aspirate doesn't confirm but atleast enhance the suspicion of tracheal aspiration .Though literature is full of conflicting data for this method but still it is a very quick, effective and easy way of suspecting or ruling out tracheal aspiration.

References: click to get abstracts / articles

1. Clinical implications of the glucose test strip method for early detection of pulmonary aspiration in nasogastric tube- fed patients - Taehan Kanho Hakhoe Chi. 2004 Dec;34(7):1215-23
2.
Comparison of blue dye visualization and glucose oxidase test strip methods for detecting pulmonary aspiration of enteral feedings in intubated adults - Chest, Vol 103, 117-121
3. Glucose content of tracheal aspirates: Implications for the detection of tube feeding aspiration. Crit Care Med 1994; 22:1557-1562
4. Glucose Content of Tracheal Aspirates - Letter to the Editor - Critical Care Medicine: Volume 23(8) August 1995 pp 1451-1452

1 comment:

J D C said...

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Thanks for sharing.....