Laryngoscope plastic blades in scheduled general anesthesia patients: a comparative randomized study

Area of Science:

• Anesthesiology
• Medical Devices
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Reusable metal laryngoscope blades are standard for tracheal intubation.
• Disposable plastic blades offer potential advantages in infection control and cost-effectiveness.
• Comparative data on the performance of different disposable laryngoscope blade brands is limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the intubation difficulty associated with Vital View plastic blades and Heine XP plastic blades against reusable Heine Classic+ metal blades.
• To evaluate the performance of disposable laryngoscope blades in a clinical setting.

Main Methods:

• Prospective randomized, controlled, single-blinded study involving 519 patients undergoing general anesthesia.
• Patients were randomized into three groups: reusable metal blades (Group M), Vital View plastic blades (Group V), and Heine XP plastic blades (Group H).
• Difficult tracheal intubation was quantified using the Intubation Difficulty Scale (IDS), with an IDS > 5 indicating moderate to major difficulty.

Main Results:

• The incidence of difficult intubation (IDS > 5) was 3.1% for metal blades, 5.1% for Vital View plastic blades, and 10.0% for Heine XP plastic blades.
• A statistically significant difference in intubation difficulty was observed between the reusable metal blades and the Heine XP plastic blades (P = 0.02).
• No significant difference in intubation difficulty was found between the reusable metal blades and the Vital View plastic blades.

Conclusions:

• Heine XP plastic laryngoscope blades may present greater challenges during tracheal intubation compared to reusable metal blades.
• Vital View plastic blades demonstrated comparable performance to reusable metal blades in terms of intubation difficulty.
• The findings suggest that while some disposable plastic blades perform similarly to metal blades, others may increase intubation complexity.