Increasing the Safety of Blind Gastric Tube Placement in Pediatric Patients: The Design and Testing of a Procedure Using a Carbon Dioxide Detection Device

The accidental placement of feeding tubes into the airway is a rare but serious complication of blind feeding tube placement in pediatrics. A method using a colorimetric carbon dioxide detector has been tested as a means of decreasing the risk of inadvertent airway placement of gastric tubes in adults, but to date, a similar study has not been accomplished in pediatric patients. This study sought to evaluate the efficacy of a procedure using the colorimetric device during blind gastric tube placement in children. The results demonstrated that the study procedure using the device is effective in detecting inadvertent tube placement into the lung in the pediatric population.