Use of the Nasal Speculum for Rat Endotracheal Intubation
Abstract
One hundred and fifty athymic nude (rnu/rnu) rats were intubated by direct visualizion of the larynx using a nasal speculum with an attached otoscope as a light source. A blunt, plastic covered stylet was introduced between the vocal cords as guide for a 16-gauge intravenous catheter which was used as an endotracheal tube. Successful intubation was performed in 148 out of 150 animals (98.7%). Complications were encountered in 2 animals only (1.3%). Complications reported were airway injury and bleeding (one animal) and post-extubation stridor (one animal). Our rodent intubation technique is simple, cheap and easy to learn and uses readily available equipment. In addition, it has a high success rate, with very few complications. All this make it a favorable intubation technique that can be used in all animal laboratories.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajassp.2009.507.511
Copyright: © 2009 Khaled R. Alzaben, Sami A. Abu-Halaweh, Abdel Karim S. Aloweidi, Zuhair A. Bani Ismail, Iyad A. Al-Ammouri, Mohamed K. Al-Esa, Samir K. Jabaiti, Moaath M. Alsmady and Mahmoud Abu-Abeeleh. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- Rats
- tracheal intubation
- general anesthesia
- complications