Advantages Of The Airtraq Laryngoscope

Possibly the most daunting task faced by critical care medical personnel are emergency intubations. Often times you are presented with a patient you are unfamiliar with who needs to be intubated in order to increase their chances of survival. In an attempt to cut costs many rural hospitals staff their emergency rooms with personnel whose intubation skills may be marginal at best and an experienced anesthetist may be unavailable. In order to allow ourselves every advantage in critical situations we must evaluate any device that may afford a greater chance of success at a reasonable cost. The Airtraq laryngoscope appears to be such a device. The Airtraq is known as an indirect laryngoscope, meaning that a view of the glottis is obtained by looking into a viewfinder rather than by direct observation such as with a traditional Macintosh or Miller laryngoscope blade. The Macintosh laryngoscope is the accepted standard device for intubation and numerous studies have been undertaken to compare the Airtraq laryngoscope to it. In this paper I will examine evidence that the Aitraq laryngoscope has been found to be superior to the Macintosh laryngoscope in many scenarios.