Comparative Clinical Evaluation of Proseal Lma with I - Gel Airway in Patients Undergoing Elective Surgical Procedures under General Anaesthesia

The laryngeal mask airway devices dominate the field of supraglottic airway management and are widely being used in clinical practice. The disposable one is the preferred variety because it avoids the risk of contamination. A new disposable supraglottic airway device the i-gel airway has been introduced recently. We have compared the disposable soft seal LMA with i-gel airway in terms of various clinical parameters. 200 patients aged 20-50 years, body weight 50 to 80 kg, ASA I and II were randomly assigned into two equal groups for airway management during surgery, group A (n=100) for disposable soft seal LMA and group B (n=100) for i-gel airway. Anaesthesia was induced with fentanyl 2μg/kg + propofol 3mg/kg and midazolam 0.05mg/kg, maintained with nitrous oxide 66%, oxygen 33% and halothane 2 to 3%. The variables studied were ease of insertion and insertion time, presence of blood on the device on withdrawal and postoperative sore throat at 2 and 24 hours. Successful insertion at first attempt was performed in 80% of group A and 98% of group B (p<0.05) within 15 seconds. Macroscopic blood was seen in 6% of group A and none in group B (p<0.05). Incidence of sore throat at 2 hours post operatively was 18% in group A and 6% in group B (p< 0.05). However, there was no such difference at 24 hours. To conclude, i-gel airway is a better and useful alternative to disposable soft seal LMA regarding ease of insertion and less incidence of sore throat in the postoperative period.