Abstract:

Objective: Tracheostomy is a procedure to procure, in order to continue mechanical ventilation, an airway to patients who stayed intubated orotracheally for a long period of time in the critical care unit. In this article, we aimed to present retrospectively percutaneous tracheostomy procedures which we performed with fiberoptic broncoscopy Material and Method: We assessed 13 patients who were undergone tracheostomy by Griggs method with fiberoptic bronchoscope in our critical care unit between August 2009 and April 2011. Patients' age, sex, the diagnosis on admission and the day in which tracheostomy was performed, the amount of bleeding (minimal bleeding, major bleeding: required surgical intervention), the time of the successful installation of the tracheostomy tube and complications which happened were noted from critical care unit data form. Results: Thirteen patients, 6 of whom female were carried out in the critical care unit, percutan tracheostomy by Griggs method. Patients' mean age was 63±16 year, average time of installation of tracheostomy tube was 21.69±13.62 minutes. In terms of complications, we did not notice any bleeding at all in 9 of our patients; 4 of the cases experienced minimal bleeding. All the tracheostomy tubes were successfully placed; none of the patients encountered any complication during and after the procedure. Conclusion: We think that, even if it extends procedure time, tracheostomy tubing via fiberoptic equipment diminishes complications of tracheostomy.

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