Effect of body position
As mentioned above, placing a horse in dorsal recumbency will lead to increases in hydrostatic pressure within the tracheal mucosa. This is especially true for the Trendelenburg position. This effect could contribute to the formation of tracheal oedema thus increasing the tracheal-cuff interface pressure. Another effect of body position is the degree of neck flexion and how it impacts endotracheal cuff pressures (J. H. Park, Lee, Lee, & Kim, 2021; S. Park, Kwon, & Kim, 2023; Seol, Jin, Oh, Byun, & Jeon, 2022). Changes in neck position will change the cuff pressure. This effect was greater in tapered cuffs as compared to cylindrical shaped cuffs (J. H. Park et al., 2021; Seol et al., 2022). It is interesting to speculate what would have been the effect of neck flexion on the “tight’ fit of the endotracheal tube in this clinical case since theoretically this should lead to longitudinal shortening of the tracheal and a slight increase in diameter of the tracheal.