Recognition of the difficult airway in normal Nigerian adults (a prospective study).

Difficulty with laryngoscopy and intubation is known to be the most frequent cause of anaesthetic related deaths. Awareness of the possibility of difficulty would enable the anaesthetist to be adequately prepared. 57 "normal" adult patients were examined pre-operatively and at laryngoscopy using the Mallampatti (1985) and the Cormack (1984) classification respectively. The result showed that none of the patients was in the IV Mallampatti nor IV Cormack groups. Four patients with class III Mallampatti features were seen, two of which were classified Cormack III at laryngoscopy. Intubation failed in these two patients. The majority of patients were classified as Mallampatti class I (68.42%) and Cormack grade I (63.16%). This in effect demonstrates that in most "normal" patients laryngoscopy and intubation should be fairly easy.