Factors affecting the intubation conditions by succinylcholine. A meta-regression analysis

Abstract

Intubation during surgery is important to keep the airway open for delivery of anaesthetic drugs and oxygen. Succinylcholine and rocuronium are common muscle relaxants which are used during intubation. Knowing the probability of adequate muscle relaxation may help in choosing the appropriate dose of succinylcholine or rocuronium. Given succinylcholine dose and using meta-analysis, considerable between study differences for excellent intubation conditions can be investigated. Using different meta-regression models the objective of this project was to investigate whether patient characteristics or methodological issues can explain any of the heterogeneity in excellent intubation condition between studies.

The results showed that due to study differences, models correcting for extra binomial variability (overdispersion) namely: Beta-binomial and Random-effects model fitted the data better. For both models there was significant overdispersion (extra binomial variability). Succinylcholi