All Video Laryngoscopes Are Not Created Equal

Intubation was more often successful without a stylet with the Storz V-MAC than with the GlideScope Ranger or McGrath Series 5 video laryngoscopes.

Video laryngoscopes outperform conventional direct laryngoscopes, but few studies have compared one video laryngoscope to another (JW Emerg Med Dec 19 2008). Using devices supplied by the manufacturers, researchers in Holland compared the effectiveness of three video laryngoscopes: the GlideScope Ranger and McGrath Series 5 — both of which have a sharply angulated distal blade — and the Storz V-MAC, which incorporates a video/fiber-optic camera onto a conventional Macintosh 3 blade.

Investigators randomized 450 adult patients undergoing elective general anesthesia to intubation with one of the three devices performed by one of five anesthesiologists who had used each instrument at least 30 times. An independent anesthesiologist first assesse…

Reviewing Author

Ron M. Walls, MD, FRCPC, FAAEM

Disclosures

Speaker's bureauAirway Management Education Center, LLC

EquityAirway Management Education Center, LLC

Grant / Research supportAgency for Health Care Research and Quality

Editorial boardsManual of Emergency Airway Management; Rosen's Emergency Medicine; UpToDate; Scientific American Medicine

Leadership positions in professional societiesAssociation of Academic Chairs in Emergency Medicine (President)

Ron M. Walls, MD, FRCPC, FAAEM

Disclosures

Speaker's bureauAirway Management Education Center, LLC

EquityAirway Management Education Center, LLC

Grant / Research supportAgency for Health Care Research and Quality

Editorial boardsManual of Emergency Airway Management; Rosen's Emergency Medicine; UpToDate; Scientific American Medicine

Leadership positions in professional societiesAssociation of Academic Chairs in Emergency Medicine (President)