A Comparative Study of Laryngeal Mask Airway and Air-Q Intubating Laryngeal Airway Using Parker Flex Tip Tube

Laryngeal Mask Airway and Air-Q Intubating Laryngeal Airway

Abstract

Background: To facilitate tracheal intubation, intubating laryngeal mask airway(ILMA) was designed specifically. A relatively new supraglottic airway device, air-Q ILA is an alternative to ILMA to facilitate endotracheal intubation. Considering advantages of air-Q over ILMA are that the breathing tube of the device is shorter, wider and due to removable connector, a standard e Parker Flex Tip tracheal tube (product of Parker Medical Company) has a curved, centered, flexible and tapered distal tip that is designed to facilitate easy, rapid and non-traumatic intubation. It has double murphy eyes with an anterior curvature and a posterior opening bevel. It is designed so that the posterior bevel will decrease the incidence of the tube catching at the anterior or the lateral laryngeal structures during tracheal intubation.Subjects and Methods: This is a randomized, single-blind study. Total of 100 patients of either sex aged 1860 years belonging to American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) physical status I or II scheduled for elective surgery under general anesthesia with endotracheal intubation were included in the study and the patients with respiratory or pharyngeal pathology, mouth opening < 2.5 cm, body mass index ?35 kg/m2, pregnancy and anticipated difficult airway were excluded from the study. The duration of the study was one year. The ethical clearance was taken from the institutional ethical committee. Written informed consent from all participants was obtained for participation in the study. Results: A total of 100 patients were allocated for the study. The insertion of the airway device was successful in all the patients of group 1. So, 50  patients were analysed for intubation in group 1. Air-Q ILA could not be inserted and resulted in failure in two cases. Hence, 48 patients were analysed statistically for intubation in group 2. The two groups were comparable with respect to age, weight and sex distribution. The mean age of patients in group 1 was 40.00 10.76 years and in group 2 it was 40.56 11.0 years (P = 0.651). There were 30 females and 20 males both in group 1 and group 2 (P = 1.000). The mean weight of patients in group 1 was 60.34 8.06 kg and in group 2 was 60.10 10.05 kg (P = 0.924). Conclusion:The  overall success rate using Parker Flex Tip tube was more with ILMA (99%) as compared to air-Q ILA (78%). It can be further suggested that Parker Flex Tip tube can be used as an alternative to silicone tube with ILMA, but more multicentre studies are required over larger populations to evaluate the utility of Parker Flex Tip tube with air-Q ILA.