Comparison of palm print test with other difficult intubation prediction tests in patients with diabetes mellitus

Abstract

Prediction of difficult intubation has critical importance in anesthesia practice. Diabetic patients usually have limited joint mobility which limits the head and neck extension during laryngoscopy. On the day prior to surgery, the patients who had diagnosis of diabetes mellitus at least for one year, were examined by an investigator by using palm print test (PPT) and other standard assessment indices. The investigator assigned a score to each evaluation indices. PPT was found to have better sensitivity (0.944), spesivity (0.692), positive predictive value (0.895) and negative predictive value (0.818) than standard assessment tests (p < 0.01). PPT should be kept in mind as a viable and easy-to-perform test for predicting difficult intubation of patients with Diabetes Mellitus.