PURPOSE During the past decade the laryngeal mask airway (LMA) has dominated literature about airways for use during general anaesthesia. The LMA addresses clearly defined clinical objectives. The purpose of this study is to determine whether those objectives were described collectively with reference to earlier airway designs. METHODS The anaesthesia sections of Index Medicus 1880-1995 were ...

treacher collin’s syndrome (tcs) is a rare inherited condition characterized by bilateral and symmetric abnormalities of structures within the first and second bronchial arches. patients with tcs present a serious problem to anesthetists maintaining their airway as upper airway obstruction and difficult tracheal intubation due to severe facial deformity. because of retrognathia, airway manageme...

Airway management is one of the most essential skills in the practice of anesthesiology and inability to secure the airway is one of the most common reasons for major anesthesia-related complications. By far the most important recent contribution to airway management has been the introduction of the Laryngeal Mask Airway (LMA) into clinical practice. The LMA was conceived and designed by Dr. Ar...

T HE supraglottic airways have gained firm places in anesthetic practice since clinical introduction of the laryngeal mask airway (LMA) Classic (LMA North America, Inc., San Diego, CA) in 1988. Although they are generally being used safely, serious complications occasionally do occur during the use of the airways. To increase safety, we need to know the types, severity, and possible causative f...

Offices and outpatient dental facilities must be properly equipped with devices for airway management, oxygenation, and ventilation. Part 1 in this series on emergency airway management focused on basic and fundamental considerations for supplying supplemental oxygen to the spontaneously breathing patient and utilizing a bag-valve-mask system including nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal airways t...

Airway management is essential to anesthesia practice. Despite several predictors of difficult intubation, patients with unexpectedly difficult airways are sometimes encountered, and an unforeseen grade III–IV laryngoscopy in a paralyzed patient is still a potentially dangerous situation. Several techniques and devices can be used in the face of an unplanned difficult intubation, such as the la...

This article presents a case in which an air medical flight crew encountered a potentially difficult airway when a trauma patient deteriorated in-flight. The crew elected to sedate and paralyze the patient and place a laryngeal mask airway without a prior attempt at direct laryngoscopy and endotracheal intubation. The term Rapid Sequence Airway (RSA) is coined for this novel approach. This arti...