Will my cat be intubated for surgery?

Intubating a cat is when you use an endotracheal tube that insett into the trachea, the windpipe, if you will. We do that in the vast majority of cases, especially those that require a general anesthetic. When I say general anesthetic, that is that a surgical plane, and we give them a drug to induce anesthesia, usually propofol. Once the cat loses consciousness, we insert the trach tube just described. Then the cat is breathing oxygen, and a certain gas isofluorane, cepofluorine, something like that that holds them under anesthetic for as long as they keep breathing that gas.

That is what's called general anesthetic, and that's how the bulk of our anesthetic procedures are done. Occasionally, you might have a milder surgery if I can use that term. Maybe it's a surgery to debride a wound or clean up an abscess...even a male cat neuter. These types of procedures don't require a general anesthetic because they’re pretty fast procedures. In some of those cases we can just do heavy sedation, and those cats are not always intubated for those more minor procedures because they don't entirely lose consciousness. There's pain control. They do lose consciousness, but not the ability to swallow. So, we don't have to worry about them aspirating anything.

If it's general anesthesia, they will be intubated, and then they will be maintained on gas. Again, depending on the type of procedure, intubation allows us to control and protect the airway.

If your cat is having any type of real surgical procedure, we are going to intubate them. Intubation is when we take an endotracheal tube and put it down into their tracheas, through their mouth. This allows us to control their oxygen levels, their breathing, and protect their airway from secretion.

Yes, ideally, all our patients are intubated for surgery. Intubation means that we place a breathing tube down their trachea and inflate a cuff to make sure that we protect their airway and if they do regurgitate or vomit, nothing gets down into their lungs. We're protecting those lungs. If something does happen,we want to ensure we have control of the pet’s airway. If there is an intubation tube and we need to administer CPR, we know we are getting oxygen directly into the lungs.