A comparison of the laryngeal mask airway and PAXpress TM for short surgical procedures.

Summary 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 TM (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 PA Xpress (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 PA Xpress (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 PA Xpress [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 PA Xpress (15 patients; 53.5%; p < 0.001). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]