A Clinical Study on Use of Recent Supraglottic AIrway Devices in Adult Patients Undergoing Surgery Under General Anesthesia

We compared two supraglottic airway devices, namely, the I-gel and Laryngeal mask airway classic (LMA-c) devices, in adult patients posted for elective surgeries under general anaesthesia. MATERIAL AND METHODS: One hundred patients, scheduled for various elective surgical procedures under general anaesthesia belonging to ASA classes I and II and duration of surgery less than 1 hour. Pre-anaesthetic evaluation included assessing the general condition of the patient, airway by Mallampatti grading and rule of 1-2-3, nutritional status and body weight of the patient, and detailed examination of the Cardiovascular and the Respiratory systems and routine investigations. Primary measures were: ease of insertion, number of insertion attempts, and time for insertion, airway leak pressure, hemodynamic changes, and oxygen saturation. Secondary measures were: adverse effects such as tongue, lip or dental trauma and postoperative sore throat, dysphagia or hoarseness. OBSERVATIONS: There was no significant difference for most of the primary and secondary parameters. However, the mean duration of insertion of i-gel in group IG patients and LMA in group CL patients were 17.123.42 and 25.625.28 seconds respectively. The difference was statistically highly significant. (p<0.001). The mean airway leak pressure with i-gel in group IG patients was 26.382.76 9 (cm H2O) and with c-LMA in group CL patients was 19.702.10 (cm H2O). The difference was statistically highly significant (p<0.01). CONCLUSION: I-gel, though slightly more expensive, was a better choice with regard to ease of insertion, better airway sealing pressure and lower morbidity compared to c-LMA.