الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
The major responsibility of the anaesthesiologist is to provide adequate ventilation to the patient. The most vital element in providing functional respiration is the airway. Through a secured airway, the anaesthesiologist can maintain adequate gas exchange, whereas, failure to maintain a patent airway for more than few minutes can result in brain damage and hence death. Management of the airway has come a long way from the development of endotracheal intubation by MacEwan in 1880 to the present day use of modern and sophisticated devices.
Although the classical endotracheal tube is the most reliable and safe method to maintain the airway, other several alternatives have been introduced aiming to facilitate airway management or to avoid the stress response provoked by the process of intubation that can cause disturbances in the haemodynamic stability with a resultant increase in the heart rate and in the arterial blood pressure, or disturbances in the intracranial pressure, or even in the intraocular pressure.
from these alternatives, the supraglottic airway devices which become increasingly popular for spontaneously breathing or mechanically ventilated patients undergoing minor surgical procedures. The Laryngeal Mask Airway (LMA) is considered the most popular of these supraglottic airway devices, invented by Dr. Brain in 1981 and modified in 1997 to the intubating laryngeal mask airway (fastrack) for blind tracheal intubation . Another relatively new supraglottic airway device invented by Daniel J. Cook few years ago is the air-Q, which is proposed to be an alternative to other ventilatory tools such as the LMA.
Both ILMA (fastrack) and air-Q can be used to maintain the airway during spontaneous or positive pressure ventilation. They can be inserted without the need of muscle relaxants, under a level of general anaesthesia deep enough to inhibit the upper airway protective reflexes. The air-Q can be used for maintainance during general anaethesia in either spontaneously or mechanically ventilated patients but the fastrack can not be used for maintainance due to the rigid stanless steel conduit so it is used only for blind tracheal intubation.