I was drinking beers with my friend Oren Friedman, a medical intensivist with an interest in hypothermia; we got to talking about how it can be a b*tch to pass the esophageal temperature probe for hypothermia. I had recorded some footage for our hypothermia video a while back on how to get er done.
Here is the reference mentioned:
Appukutty J, Shroff PP. Anesth Analg. 2009 Sep;109(3):832-5. Nasogastric tube insertion using different techniques in anesthetized patients: a prospective, randomized study.
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Hi, my name is Scott Weingart. 
Is nasopharyngeal temp probe the next best thing if esophageal temp probe isn’t available for purpose of therapeutic hypothermia?
Nope, nasopharyngeal is pretty useless. If you have a rectal prbe, then you have an esophageal probe; I have never seen one that is not for both sites. Just make sure you don’t go from rectal to esophageal without a probe change in between. If you had neither of these, bladder is the next best.
Thanks Scott…There is only rectal temp probe available at my shop.
Duncan,
Not sure I understand. If you take a cell phone pict of your probe, I am happy to confirm.
Hi Scott,
I use the same technique to get in the orogastric in the trauma patient. My only other tip is to use the scardest / most highly strung student / juniour MO you can find to do the “intubation” – 100% guaranteed to get ti in the oesopagus!!
Casey
too funny!!!!
Hey Scott,
At our hospital at Christiana – where you just recently visited – we actually use a temp foley. Your (or others) thoughts on that?
- Vik – one of the residents at lunch
Why do you slice/split/uni-valve the ETT?
so you can strip it off of the probe, otherwise the connecter end of the temp probe or the back of your ng tube prevents the ET tube from being pulled off the probe
How do measure the distance of the esophageal temperature probe? Tip of mouth to 2cm above the xyphoid or tip of mouth to ear to 2cm above the Xyphoid?
the latter