© The Board of Management and Trustees of the British Journal of Anaesthesia 2006. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
EDITORIAL |
Editorial I: The classic laryngeal mask airway: a tried and tested airway. What now?
Bath, UK
E-mail: timcook@ukgateway.net
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Safe, effective airway management is a foundation of quality anaesthetic practice and the classic laryngeal mask airway (cLMA) (LMA-ClassicTM, Intavent Orthofix, Maidenhead, UK) is one of the keystones of modern anaesthetic practice. The past 2 years have seen the introduction of inexpensive competitors. With this, the decision as to which laryngeal mask to use is being taken out of the hands of anaesthetists by managers and purchasers in many hospitals. This has great implications for anaesthetic practice and this editorial considers the many issues raised by the introduction of single-use laryngeal masks.
The cLMA achieves a reliable airway with a low incidence of major complications and pharyngo-laryngeal morbidity. Consequently, since its introduction, the cLMA has transformed routine anaesthesia. There have been an estimated 200 million patient uses, over 2500 academic papers and, some would argue, only one death directly attributable to its use.1 Whether this is accepted, or not,
Declaration of interest
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