The Self-Pressurising Air-Q® Intubating Laryngeal Airway for Airway Maintenance during Anaesthesia in Adults: A Report of the First 100 Uses

The self-pressurising air-Q® Intubating Laryngeal Airway is a new, commercially available, supraglottic airway device that incorporates a self-regulating periglottic cuff. In this retrospective review, we describe our initial clinical experience using the device in 100 patients. The ease and number of insertion attempts, airway seal pressure, device positioning, intubation success and oropharyngeal morbidity were recorded. The air-Q Intubating Laryngeal Airway was successfully inserted in all 100 patients and functioned adequately as a primary airway in 70 of the 72 patients in which it was used for this purpose. The median (interquartile range [range]) airway seal pressure was 22 (19-29, [10-40]) cmH2O. Intubation via the air-Q Intubating Laryngeal Airway was successful in 28 of 29 (97%) patients. Eleven percent of patients complained of sore throat postoperatively before discharge. In our series, the air-Q Intubating Laryngeal Airway performed adequately as a primary airway during anaesthesia with respect to ease of insertion, adequacy of airway maintenance and as a conduit for intubation in both anticipated and unanticipated difficult airways. Although our initial experience is positive, further investigation with larger numbers of observations are needed as the upper limits of the 95% confidence intervals for device failure (the worst failure rate the clinician could expect) are still high.