• Christopher Low, Pam Young, Christopher J Webb, Peter Walshe, Stephen Hone, Alessandro Panarese, and Maxwell S McCormick.
• ENT Department, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, United Kingdom. c.low1@btinternet.com
• Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2005 Feb 1; 132 (2): 244-6.

ObjectivesIt is sometimes impossible to obtain an adequate laryngeal view during rigid endoscopic laryngoscopy. This may be due to a high tongue base. Our study seeks to determine a correlation between tongue base level and the adequacy of laryngeal view obtained with a 70-degree rigid endoscope.Study Design And SettingOver a period of 4 months, patients from a voice clinic were gathered and categorized into class I to III according to Mallampati et al (1985). Rigid laryngo-videostroboscopy was conducted to assess the larynx and the adequacy of the view was recorded.Results74 patients were recruited. The number of adequate views were: class I = 18/20 (90%); class II = 20/33 (60.6%); class III = 7/21 (33.3%). chi 2 analysis demonstrated significance trend in all 3 classes.ConclusionThe level of the tongue base correlated well with the adequacy of laryngeal view obtained from a 70-degree rigid endoscope. This can be used to predict the success of obtaining adequate views during rigid laryngoscopy.

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