The Cricoid Pressure in Pediatric Patients

Because the cricoid force in children has not been quantified, clinicians wrongly used the 'adult' force. it has been found that the use of the adult force can result in compression and distortion of the child's airway and can lead to airway obstruction and difficult intubation. Based on known measurements of the cricoid surface area in children, the theoretical forces necessary to occlude the esophageal entrance have been calculated . These forces were found to be much less than the recommended adult force and much less than the forces that distort the airway as reported previously. Based on these theoretical calculations, the current study was performed to determine the effective cricoid force for pediatric groups (group 1 and group 2).