RESUMO
The study was designed to compare the effectiveness and ease of the insertion of the laryngeal mask airway [LMA] and the endotracheal tube [ETT] according to the presence of sign of difficult airway. Eight hundred seventy nine patients undergoing elective surgery were randomly allocated in the ETT group [n = 453] and the LMA group [n = 426]. Airway assessment was performed using the original Mallampati classification and measuring the maximum range of the head and neck mobility. Anesthesia was induced with midazolam, fentanyl, propofol and succinylcholine. The severity of difficulty in ETT or LMA insertion was estimated on a three-point scale according to the final outcome of the airway management [0 = easy, 1 = difficult, 2 = impossible]. Patients with suspected or observed difficulty in tracheal intubation proved to have easy insertion of LMA. Additionally, the ease of intubation was unrelated to potential failure of proper insertion of LMA. Although [difficult] patients in both studied groups have similar frequencies, the underlying anatomical characteristics were not similar