• R C N McMorrow and R K Mirakhur.
• Department of Anaesthetics, The Royal Hospitals Trust, Grosvenor Road, Belfast BT12 6BA, UK.
• Anaesthesia. 2003 Oct 1;58(10):998-1002.

AbstractA new laryngoscope has been designed, incorporating an adjustable mirror and a levered tip similar to the McCoy blade, in an attempt to bridge the gulf between simple direct laryngoscopy and fiberoptic laryngoscopy. Manual in-line neck stabilisation was used to simulate difficult laryngoscopy in 14 anaesthetised patients after full neuromuscular blockade. The best view at laryngoscopy was assessed using a standard Macintosh laryngsocope, a size 3 McCoy laryngoscope and the mirrored laryngoscope. The best laryngeal view obtained in all cases with the Macintosh blade was a grade 3. The mirrored laryngoscope improved this view in 10 cases (71%) compared with five cases (36%) with the McCoy laryngoscope (p = 0.005); in seven cases (50%), the view improved to a grade 1 compared with no cases when the McCoy was used (p = 0.02). We conclude that the mirrored laryngoscope offers considerable advantages over the Macintosh and the McCoy laryngoscopes in simulated difficult laryngoscopy, is simple to use and requires no special training.

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