A scoping review was done in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guideline extension for scoping reviews. MEDLINE and Cochrane databases, as well as additional manual searching was performed to identify literature reporting data on airway patency and the presence of an air pocket in critically buried avalanche victims. After eliminating duplicates, we screened abstracts and main texts to identify eligible studies.

Of 4,109 studies identified 154 were eligible for further screening. Twenty-four publications and three additional data sources with a total number of 566 cases were included in this review. The proportion of short-term (< 35 min) to long-term burial (≥ 35 min) in the analysed studies was 19% and 66%, respectively. The burial duration remained unknown in 12% of cases. The prevalence of airway patency in critically buried avalanche victims was 41% while that of airway obstruction was 12%, with an overall rate of reporting as low as 50%. An air pocket was present in 19% of cases, absent in 46% and unknown in 35% of the cases.

The present study found that in critically buried avalanche victims patent airways were more than three times more prevalent than obstructed, with the airway status reported only in half of the cases. This high rate of airway patency supports the ongoing development and the effectiveness of avalanche rescue systems which oppose asphyxiation in critically buried avalanche victims. Further effort should be done to improve the documentation of airway patency and the presence of an air pocket in avalanche victims and to identify factors affecting the rate of airway obstruction.