BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE CobraPLUS and Cookgas air-Q are supraglottic airways expected to allow safe ventilation as well as reliable blind intubation. In a prospective, controlled trial, we hypothesised that quality of ventilation and success rate of blind endotracheal intubation of these new devices would be superior to the Fastrach intubating laryngeal mask airway (ILMA). When blind intubatio...

1 Brimacombe J, Richardson C, Keller C, Donald S. Mechanical closure of the vocal cords with the laryngeal mask airway ProSeal. Br J Anaesth 2002; 88: 296–7 2 Kawauchi Y, Nakazawa K, Ishibashi S, Kaneko Y, Ishikawa S, Makita K. Unilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve neuropraxia following placement of a ProSeal laryngeal mask airway in a patient with CREST syndrome. Acta Anaesthesiol Scand 2005; 4...

Sir, Ambu AuraGainTM[1] is a new single-use supraglottic airway (SGA) device available in adult size 3, 4, and 5. It is an anatomically curved SGA with integrated gastric access and can be used as a conduit for direct endotracheal intubation assisted by a flexible scope.[1] The standard recommended insertion technique is as that of intubating laryngeal mask airway (LMA),[2] i.e., keeping the ha...

The laryngeal mask airway is a safe and reliable airway management device. This review describes the insertion techniques, advantages, limitations, and potential applications of the laryngeal mask airway in neonates.

Ten junior doctors with no postgraduate anaesthetic experience attempted to ventilate the lungs of 50 anaesthetized patients, using either a laryngeal mask or a Guedel airway and face mask. Success was defined as the production of two successive tidal volumes exceeding 800 ml within 40 s. The failure rate was significantly greater using the laryngeal mask compared with the face mask (P < 0.05) ...

BACKGROUND Competence in emergency airway management is key in order to improve patient safety and outcome. The scope of compulsory training for emergency physicians or paramedics is quite limited, especially in Austria. The purpose of this study was to review the difficult airway management performance of an emergency medical service (EMS) in a region that has implemented a more thorough train...

EVERY year, millions (tens of millions?) of patients undergo laryngoscopy and tracheal intubation as part of their routine anesthetic care. Although this method was only rarely used in our practice before the 1960s, it is now almost as routine as placing a peripheral intravenous catheter. A great deal of attention is devoted to airway management in general (particularly the patient with a diffi...

The beauty of the laryngeal mask is that it forms an air tight seal enclosing the larynx rather than plugging the pharynx, and avoid airway obstruction in the oropharynx. The goal of its development was to create an intermediate form of airway management face mask and endotracheal tube. Indication for its use includes any procedure that would normally involve the use of a face mask. The larynge...