Anaesthesia
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Multicenter Study Clinical Trial
The intubating laryngeal mask. Results of a multicentre trial with experience of 500 cases.
A multicentre trial of the use of the intubating laryngeal mask was carried out at seven centres in the United Kingdom using the same agreed protocol. Lung ventilation followed by blind tracheal intubation through the intubating laryngeal mask was attempted on 500 ASA grade 1 and 2 patients. It was possible to insert the intubating laryngeal mask in all 500 cases. ⋯ Seventeen of the 19 failures occurred during the individual operator's first 20 attempts. The intubating laryngeal mask provides a successful method for blind tracheal intubation in a large proportion of cases and appears to be superior to the standard laryngeal mask airway for this purpose. The intubating laryngeal mask may be of use when tracheal intubation has failed using conventional methods.