This study looks at advanced airway management in critically ill or injured patients treated by physician manned emergency medical services, comparing early (on-scene) intubation to late (emergency department) intubation.
The ELITE trial is a prospective randomized controlled trial (RCT) to compare competent EARLY-intubation to LATE-intubation in patients with on-scene Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) \< 9 and short ambulance transport times (\< 20 min) to hospital. The study aims to establish if advanced airway management with endotracheal intubation (ETI) in the field by specially trained Emergency Medical Services (EMS) physicians - compared to endotracheal intubation (ETI) performed by physicians in the emergency department in the same group - improves outcome in terms of 30-day mortality, degree of disability at discharge, complications and length of hospital stay, and neurologic outcome at 6 months.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Haukeland University Hospital
Bergen, Norway
Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation
Drøbak, Norway
30 days mortality after injury or illness.
Dead or alive
Time frame: 30 days after illness or injury
Neurologic outcome at 6 months after injury or illness.
Neurologic outcome will be assessed using glascow outcome scores (GOS-E)
Time frame: 6 months after illness or injury
Intubation success rates and airway management complications for the entire cohort and for key subsets
Time frame: up to 6 months after illness or injury
Length of hospital stay, complications and degree of disability at discharge.
Time frame: up to 6 months after illness or injury
Prevalence of adverse effects like cardiovascular complications (e.g. bradycardia, hypotension, asystole), and respiratory complications (e.g. hypoxia, pneumothorax).
Time frame: up to 6 months after illness or injury
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