Comparison of Cormack and Lehane`s grade with tongue movements

Abstract

The most important cause of anesthesia-related deaths or mortality during general anesthesia is difficult airway or difficult intubation. The Cormack-Lehane score is commonly used as a standard method for the anesthesiologist to assess the difficulty of securing the airway for a long time. The purpose of the study is to investigate tongue movements in relation to the Cormack Lehane (CL) classification.212 adult patients (116 male, 96 female) submitted for elective surgery under general anesthesia were included in this study. Age, height, weight, tongue movements were recorded during preoperative evaluation. CL was used for visualization of the larynx. To define the tongue movements, horizontal and vertical lines are used. Horizontal lines passing through the mid points of the distance between subnasal to stomion and stomion to mentum, and vertical lines passing through the right and left infraorbital points were constituted on each patient. Patients were asked to protrude the tip of the tongue upward, downward and laterally (left-right) in anatomical neutral position.There were not any significant correlation between CL and age, height, weight and tongue movements (p>0.05).There are lots of studies indicating CL classification as a marker. But there must be done more other studies which search for the relationship between CL and tongue movements. We are convinced that our study will set light to the awareness of this deficiency.