What question did this study set out to answer?

To validate the HEAVEN criteria for predicting difficult airways during emergency intubation.

April 24, 2026

A Difficult-Airway Prediction Tool for Emergency Airway Management: The HEAVEN Criteria

Key Points

To validate the HEAVEN criteria for predicting difficult airways during emergency intubation.
Validated the HEAVEN criteria in a cohort of 2,419 air medical patients.
Analyzed associations between HEAVEN criteria and first-attempt intubation success.
Evaluated negative predictive value for the criteria.
First-attempt success decreased with more HEAVEN criteria present, from 94% to 43%.
Criteria showed high negative predictive value for identifying difficult airways.
Each criterion correlated with a lower likelihood of successful intubation.

Abstract

This study validated the HEAVEN criteria as a tool for predicting difficult airways during emergency rapid sequence intubation (RSI) in a large air medical cohort of 2,419 patients. Each HEAVEN criterion was independently associated with lower first-attempt success, and overall intubation success decreased as more criteria were present (from 94% with none to 43% with five or more). The criteria demonstrated high negative predictive value, supporting their usefulness for identifying difficult airways in emergency RSI settings.

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Cite This Study

Prentice et al. (Wed,) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/69eb0bc7553a5433e34b563f https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.65357/001c.160259

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