Tianjin Medical Journal ›› 2025, Vol. 53 ›› Issue (10): 1098-1104.doi: 10.11958/20251687

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Advances in artificial intelligence for airway management of intubated patients

LI Jiarong1(), ZHU Xiaomin1, ZHAO Xiaoyun2,()   

  1. 1 Medical School of Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
    2 Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Tianjin University Chest Hospital
  • Received:2025-04-22 Revised:2025-07-10 Published:2025-10-15 Online:2025-10-12
  • Contact: E-mail:zxydoctor@163.com

Abstract:

Airway management is a critical component of critical patient care. Although traditional methods of airway management are effective to some extent, they still face many challenges, such as difficult airways, delayed endotracheal intubation, endotracheal tube migration, unpredictable airway complications and failure to mechanical ventilation weaning. Artificial intelligence (AI), a technological tool with advanced algorithms, offers important innovations to improve the safety and efficiency of airway management with its multimodal data integration and real-time decision support capabilities. For example, AI can be used in areas such as real-time monitoring of patients' vital signs, dynamic adjustment of ventilator parameters, monitoring and assessment of airway complications, and assisted robotic tracheal intubation. In addition, AI is able to build predictive models based on big data to help reduce the risk of injury in mechanically ventilated patients and assist clinicians in making timely decisions. This paper reviews the research progress of AI in airway management and discusses issues of privacy and security, ethics, model performance and interpretability that may be faced during the use of AI, and looks forward to a more active role for AI in airway management in future.

Key words: artificial intelligence, airway management, intubation, intratracheal, respiration, artificial, difficult airway, robotic endotracheal intubation

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