Difficult Airway Assessment: Bite Your Lip!

Many clinical assessment tools have been proposed for predicting difficult intubation, but none has emerged as a definitive test. These investigators in Iran compared a . . .

Many clinical assessment tools have been proposed for predicting difficult intubation, but none has emerged as a definitive test. These investigators in Iran compared a new test, the upper lip bite test (ULBT), against the modified Mallampati test (MMT) in 300 consecutive elective anesthesia patients aged ≥16 years without edentulousness, limitations of mouth opening or neck mobility, and laryngeal masses.

The ULBT is performed by asking the patient to bite his or her upper lip. The test is scored as class I if the lower teeth can bite the upper lip above the vermilion border, class II if below the border, and class III if the upper lip cannot be bitten. The MMT was scored as class I (full view of oral pharynx) to class IV (no view of oral p…

Reviewing Author

Ron M. Walls, MD, FRCPC, FACEP