TY - JOUR T1 - Catheter insertion depths in less-invasive surfactant administration JF - Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition JO - Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed DO - 10.1136/archdischild-2021-321611 SP - fetalneonatal-2021-321611 AU - Christian Achim Maiwald AU - Patrick Neuberger AU - Axel R Franz AU - Corinna Engel AU - Jörg Michel AU - Michael Esser AU - Christian F Poets Y1 - 2021/06/03 UR - http://fn.bmj.com/content/early/2021/06/03/archdischild-2021-321611.abstract N2 - Introduction Less-invasive surfactant administration (LISA) under continuous positive airway pressure is increasingly used for the treatment of neonatal respiratory distress. Different procedures are described, but data on the optimal catheter insertion depth are sparse.Objective To generate data for recommending an optimal catheter insertion depth in LISA.Methods We examined 112 anterior–posterior chest X-rays from intubated infants and determined the carina’s vertebral projection, whenever possible. After that, distances between the middle of cervical vertebra 4 (C4) and thoracic vertebra 2 and the middle of C4 to thoracic vertebra 3, respectively, were measured. Results were plotted against infant’s weight.Results A weight-based chart and recommendations for the optimal intratracheal catheter position in infants with a body weight between 350 and 4000 g were created.Conclusions Generated data offer standardisation and may thus help to find a balance between risk of surfactant reflux and unilateral surfactant administration.All data relevant to this data analysis are included in the article or uploaded as supplemental information. ER -