Videolaryngoscopy Assisted Intubation — New Era for Airway Management

Aim of review: The aim of this article is to review the recent literatures regarding videolaryngoscopes, compare performance of videolaryngoscopy versus direct laryngoscopy, discuss the role of videolaryngoscopy in clinical airway management and provide the measures that can improve the performance of videolaryngoscopy and decrease complications associated with videolaryngoscopy. Methods: The literatures about the use of videolaryngoscopes in the clinical airway management, published in the past decades, were searched from the Pubmed and Cochrane databases and reviewed, in order to determine their performance, and identify their limitations and find appropriate alternate techniques to overcome their shortcomings and failures.Recent findings: Videolaryngoscopes are promising intubation devices, which are easy to use, and the skills involved are easy to obtain by either novices or experienced intubators. In the current practice, videolaryngoscopes are commonly used as main devices of predicted difficult airways and as rescue tools of difficult or failed direct laryngoscopy. For patients with difficult airways, videolaryngoscopy can provide an improved laryngeal visualization and achieve a higher intubation success rate compared with direct laryngoscopy. Moreover, videolaryngoscopy has the potential to increase patient safety by facilitating learning, teaching, and success of tracheal intubation. Despite the very good laryngeal visualization, the insertion and advancement of the tracheal tube with videolaryngoscopy may occasionally fail, and the airway injuries associated with videolaryngoscopy can occur.Summary: The introduction of videolaryngoscopy has resulted in a dramatic transformation of clinical airway management and is seen as the evolutionary step in intubation technology. There are several different types of videolaryngoscopes available. Each device's features may offer advantages or disadvantages, depending on the situation the anesthetist has to deal with. To get the best out of videolaryngoscopy, all anesthetists must be trained in the use of videolaryngoscopes and such devices should be available in all sites where tracheal intubation is performed.   Citation: Fu-Shan Xue, Qian-Jin Liu, Hui-Xian Li, Ya-Yang Liu. Videolaryngoscopy assisted intubation — new era for airway management. J Anesth Perioper Med 2016; 3: 258-69. doi: 10.24015/JAPM.2016.0035This is an open-access article, published by Evidence Based Communications (EBC). This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format for any lawful purpose. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.