Introduction:

In assessing the difficulty of performing conventional laryngoscopy, the necessary integration of essential clinical aspects related to respiratory control is not enhanced.

Objective:

To validate a prediction model of an anatomically difficult laryngoscopy in the patient that requires orotracheal intubation.

Method:

An analytical study was carried out in a population of 17,966 patients in need of direct laryngoscopy for an orotracheal intubation for surgical purposes at the General Teaching Hospital "Dr. Agostinho Neto” from Guantanamo between 2015 and 2018. A sample of 17,068 patients was determined by randomized sampling. The following variables were studied: peripheral stigma for difficult laryngoscopy, difficult laryngoscopy after anesthetic induction, laryngoscopic evaluation according to Cormack-Lehane, diagnostic value of the predictive evaluation model for laryngoscopy.

Results:

The high degrees in the classification of predictive clinical aspects and the coexistence with the morphological alteration of the epiglottis were the markers most associated with the probability of anatomically difficult laryngoscopy. With the integration of four essential clinical aspects, the degree of probable difficulty in visualizing the vocal cords was identified.

Conclusions:

A model was designed that allowed the prediction of an anatomically difficult laryngoscopy, whose validation certified its feasibility to apply it in medical practice.

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