SummaryDifficult airway practice guidelines include the use of a supraglottic airway device as part of the armamentarium to provide and maintain ventilation and oxygenation. We retrospectively reviewed 14 480 patients aged ≥ 18 years who underwent general anaesthesia. We identified 74 (0.5%) patients whose lungs were identified as having been difficult to ventilate via a supraglottic airway device, and 29 (0.2%) patients in whom device placement failed. Multivariate analysis identified four risk factors for difficult ventilation via a supraglottic airway device: male sex (OR 1.75, 95% CI 1.07-2.86, p = 0.02); age > 45 years (OR 1.70, 95% CI 1.01-2.86, p = 0.04); short thyromental distance (OR 4.35, 95% CI 2.31-8.17, p < 0.001); and limited neck movement (OR 2.75, 95% CI 1.02-7.44, p = 0.04). Adverse respiratory events including oxygen desaturation, hypercapnoea, laryngospasm, and bronchospasm occurred in 17 patients (22%). The incidence of difficult ventilation via a supraglottic airway device was 0.5% in a large cohort of South-East Asian patients.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.