A comparison of the laryngeal mask airway and PAXpress™ for short surgical procedures

Sixty adult patients undergoing minor peripheral surgery under general anaesthesia were randomly allocated to receive either the laryngeal mask airway (laryngeal mask airway; size 4 for females and size 5 for males) or the PA(Xpress)(TM) (adult size), inserted by a single operator with experience of > 50 insertions of each device. The laryngeal mask airway was correctly placed on the first attempt in 27 patients (90%) compared with 20 patients (67%) when using the PA(Xpress) (p < 0.01). No patient required more than two attempts at insertion and there were no failures with the laryngeal mask airway, compared with four (13%) who needed three attempts and two failures (7%) with the PA(Xpress) (p < 0.001 and p < 0.01, respectively). Mean (SD) total placement time was shorter with the laryngeal mask airway [24.6 (3.1) s] than with the PA(Xpress) [35.4 (2.5) s; p < 0.01]. The most common complication was sore throat, which occurred less frequently with the laryngeal mask airway (8 patients; 26%) than with the PA(Xpress) (15 patients; 53.5%; p < 0.001).