Use of high-flow nasal cannula oxygen therapy to prevent desaturation during tracheal intubation of intensive care patients with mild-to-moderate hypoxemia.

OBJECTIVES Tracheal intubation of ICU patients is frequently associated with severe hypoxemia. Although noninvasive ventilation reduces desaturation during intubation of severely hypoxemic patients, it does not allow for per-procedure oxygenation and has not been evaluated in mild-to-moderate hypoxemic patients for whom high-flow nasal cannula oxygen may be an alternative. We sought to compare pre- and per-procedure oxygenation with either a nonrebreathing bag reservoir facemask or a high-flow nasal cannula oxygen during tracheal intubation of ICU patients. DESIGN Prospective quasi-experimental before-after study (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01699880). SETTING University hospital medico-surgical ICU. PATIENTS All adult patients requiring tracheal intubation in the ICU were eligible. INTERVENTIONS In the control (before) period, preoxygenation was performed with a nonrebreathing bag reservoir facemask and in the change of practice (after) period, with high-flow nasal cannula oxygen. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Primary outcome was median lowest SpO2 during intubation, and secondary outcomes were SpO2 after preoxygenation and number of patients with saturation less than 80%. One hundred one patients were included. Median lowest SpO2 during intubation were 94% (83-98.5) with the nonrebreathing bag reservoir facemask versus 100% (95-100) with high-flow nasal cannula oxygen (p < 0.0001). SpO2 values at the end of preoxygenation were higher with high-flow nasal cannula oxygen than with nonrebreathing bag reservoir facemask and were correlated with the lowest SpO2 reached during the intubation procedure (r = 0.38, p < 0.0001). Patients in the nonrebreathing bag reservoir facemask group experienced more episodes of severe hypoxemia (2% vs 14%, p = 0.03). In the multivariate analysis, preoxygenation with high-flow nasal cannula oxygen was an independent protective factor of the occurrence of severe hypoxemia (odds ratio, 0.146; 95% CI, 0.01-0.90; p = 0.037). CONCLUSIONS High-flow nasal cannula oxygen significantly improved preoxygenation and reduced prevalence of severe hypoxemia compared with nonrebreathing bag reservoir facemask. Its use could improve patient safety during intubation.