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Awake flexible fiberoptic intubation is standard care for elective anesthesia patients with predictors of difficult airways. Researchers at three hospitals in Denmark randomized 93 adult elective surgery patients to awake intubation with a flexible fiberoptic endoscope or the McGrath video laryngoscope. All intubations were performed by attending anesthesiologists with expertise in both techniques.
All patients had anticipated difficult laryngoscopy or intubation, with a modified simplified airway risk index score ≥4 (the index assigns values of 0 to 2 for previous difficult intubation, Mallampati classification, cervical spine mobility, mouth opening, thyromental distance, prognathism ability, and body-mass index). All patients received pre…