Risk of pulmonary aspiration with laryngeal mask airway and tracheal tube during positive pressure ventilation.

摘要

It was with great interest that I read Bernardini and Natalini's [1] study comparing the risk of aspiration during positive pressure ventilation via laryngeal mask airways (LMAs) and tracheal tubes. The authors rightly pointed out that fortunately this is an infrequent event and as such would require an enormous number of patients to be entered into a randomised controlled trial for meaningful conclusions to be drawn. They reported their institute's observational data over a 10.5-year period, and concluded that their study increased the level of current evidence and that the risk of pulmonary aspiration in selected patients did not increase when a LMA was used instead of a tracheal tube.