Airway management for patients with craniofacial disorders poses many challenges. The anaesthesiologist must be familiar with the normal bony and soft-tissue anatomy in the airway and how anatomy is altered by various congenital disorders. Specific areas to assess include the oral cavity, anterior mandibular space, maxilla, temporomandibular joint and vertebral column. Congenital conditions that may alter normal anatomy and therefore anaesthetic management include cleft lip and palate with or without Pierre Robin syndrome, craniofacial dysostosis, mandibulofacial dysostosis/Treacher Collins syndrome, hemifacial microsomia, Klippel-Feil syndrome, Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, trisomy 21/Down's syndrome, Freeman-Sheldon/whistling face syndrome/craniocarpotarsal dysplasia, fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, mucopolysaccharidosis and vascular malformations.

Simulators are here to stay. Presently their usage in teaching psychomotor skills has scientific validity in specific tasks but their efficacy for teaching higher-order cognitive skills is still evolving. Future studies will continue to delineate the usage in different areas by studying the outcome in skills training and retention.

In children with a known difficult airway who are at risk for a difficult reintubation, the CAEC is a useful tool for a trial of extubation in the intensive care unit.

Hemifacial microsomia (HFM) is associated with a difficult airway. We hypothesized that a difficult intubation would be predicted by radiographic evaluation of the severity of mandibular hypoplasia. A retrospective review of anaesthetic and surgical records of 102 children with HFM from 1986 to 1996 was conducted for radiographic classification of mandibular hypoplasia and degree of difficulty with intubation. Intubation was classified as Grade A-easy, Grade B-difficult, or Grade C-very difficult. The mandibular anatomy was categorized as Type I-'mini-mandible', Type II-abnormal condylar size and shape, or Type III-absent ramus, condyle, and temporomandibular joint. In the 82 patients with HFM, 70% were classified as Grade A, 21% had Grade B and 9% had Grade C airways. No patients with Type I mandible had Grade C airway, while 25% of the patients with Type III mandible had Grade C airway. The correlation of the degree of airway difficulty with mandibular type was significant (P=0.001). In 20 patients with bilateral mandibular hypoplasia, 30% had Grade A, 35% had Grade B, and 35% had Grade C airways. We conclude that radiographic classification of mandibular deformity is a useful adjunct for preoperative prediction of airway difficulty in the management of children with unilateral HFM.

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