Percutaneous tracheostomy with the guide wire dilating forceps technique: Presentation of 171 consecutive patients

Background. Evaluation of percutaneous tracheostomy (PT) with the guide wire dilating forceps (GWDF) technique. Methods. Prospective study of perioperative complications, retrospective analysis of early and late complications in an ICU in a teaching university hospital. Results. The success rate of the procedure was 96.5%. The average procedure time in 171 consecutive patients was 5.0 min. Perioperative complications requiring surgical or medical intervention occurred in 6.4% of 171 patients. This included conversion to surgical tracheostomy, which was necessary in six patients (3.5%). Major complications while being cannulated occurred in 2.4% of 164 patients but seemed mostly unrelated with the GWDF technique itself. Late complications (after decannulation) were mostly minor and occurred in 22.6% of 106 patients. Only one patient (0.9%) had a symptomatic tracheal stenosis developed. Conclusion. Percutaneous tracheostomy with the guide wire dilating forceps technique is easy to perform at the bedside with few late complications. However, in our study, perioperative and immediate postoperative bleeding complications (minor and major) occur quite often. (C) 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.