A comparison of the laryngeal mask airway and PA(Xpress) for short surgical procedures.

Abstract

Sixty adult patients undergoing minor peripheral surgery under general anaesthesia were randomly allocated to receive either the laryngeal mask airway (laryngeal mask airway; size 4 for females and size 5 for males) or the PAXpress (adult size), inserted by a single operator with experience of > 50 insertions of each device. The laryngeal mask airway was correctly placed on the first attempt in 27 patients (90%) compared with 20 patients (67%) when using the PAXpress (p < 0.01). No patient required more than two attempts at insertion and there were no failures with the laryngeal mask airway, compared with four (13%) who needed three attempts and two failures (7%) with the PAXpress (p < 0.001 and p < 0.01, respectively). Mean (SD) total placement time was shorter with the laryngeal mask airway [24.6 (3.1) s] than with the PAXpress[35.4 (2.5) s; p < 0.01]. The most common complication was sore throat, which occurred less frequently with the laryngeal mask airway (8 patients; 26%) than with the PAXpress (15 patients; 53.5%; p < 0.001).