Background:The curved laryngoscope blade described by Macintosh in 1943 remains the most widely used device to facilitate tracheal intubation. The Airtraq® (Prodol Meditec S.A, Vizcaya, Spain) is a new, single use, indirect laryngoscope introduced into clinical practice in 2005. It has wan exaggerated blade curvature with internal arrangement of optical lenses and a mechanism to prevent fogging of the distal lens. A high quality view of the glottis is provided without the need to align the oral, pharyngeal and tracheal axis. We evaluated Airtraq and Macintosh laryngoscopes for success rate of tracheal intubation, overall duration of successful intubation, optimization maneuvers, POGO (percentage of glottic opening) score, and ease of intubation.Materials and Methods:Patients were randomly allocated by computer-generated random table to one of the two groups, comprising 40 patients each, group I (Airtraq) and group II (Macintosh). After induction of general anesthesia, tracheal intubation was attempted with the Airtraq or the Macintosh laryngoscope as per group. Primary end points were overall success rate of tracheal intubation, overall duration of successful tracheal intubation, optimization maneuvers, POGO score and ease of intubation between the two groups.Results:We observed that Airtraq was better than the Macintosh laryngoscope as duration of successful intubation was shorter in Airtraq 18.15 seconds (±2.74) and in the Macintosh laryngoscope it was 32.72 seconds (±8.31) P < 0.001. POGO was also better in the Airtraq group 100% grade 1 versus 67.5% in the Macintosh group, P < 0.001. Ease of intubation was also better in the Airtraq group. It was easy in 97.5% versus 42.5% in the Macintosh group, P < 0.001.Conclusion:Both Airtraq and Macintosh laryngoscopes are equally effective in tracheal intubation in normal airways. Duration of successful tracheal intubation was shorter in the Airtraq group which was statistically significant.

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Background:Limited evidence supports the efficacy of peripheral route fentanyl and local anesthetic combination for postoperative analgesia. Our study was therefore designed to demonstrate the analgesic efficacy of two different doses of fentanyl in combination with bupivacaine for surgical site infiltration in patients undergoing modified radical mastoidectomy (MRM).Materials and Methods:60 patients undergoing MRM under general anesthesia were randomly allocated into two groups, first group receiving 0.5% bupivacaine at a dose of 2 mg/kg body weight with 50 μg fentanyl and second group receiving bupivacaine 0.5% at a dose of 2 mg/kg body weight with 100 μg fentanyl as infiltration of operative field in and around the incision site, after the incision and just before completion of surgery. In postoperative period pain, nausea-vomiting and sedation was recorded at 0 hr, 2, 4, 6, 12 and 24 hrs.Results:Both the combinations of bupivacaine and fentanyl (Group I and Group II) were effective for postoperative analgesia. In both the groups the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) score was less than 3 at each time interval. None of the patients required rescue analgesia. The comparison of VAS scores at different intervals showed that group II had lower VAS scores at all time points.Conclusions:Fentanyl and bupivacaine combinations in doses of 50 and 100 μg along with 0.5% bupivacaine at a fixed dose of 2 mg/kg body weight are effective in the management of postoperative pain. Patients who received 100 μg fentanyl (Group II) had lower VAS scores as compared to the patients who received 50 μg fentanyl (Group I) with similar side effects.