[Fastrach laryngeal mask and difficult intubation].

Objective: To evaluate the success rate of intubation through the intubating laryngeal mask airway (LMA-Fastrach) in patients with predictive signs of difficult airway or after intubation failure.

Study Design: Open prospective study.

Patients: The study included 33 adults, 21 with predictive signs of difficult airway and 12 after intubation failure.

[Value of the association of normovolemic dilution and hyperbaric oxygenation in the treatment of sudden deafness. A retrospective study].

The multiple treatments of sudden deafness shows how this pathology still remains quite unknown. The authors present a retrospective study of 87 patients treated by normovolemic hemodilution associated to hyperbaric oxygenation. They obtain a total à 60% of significant recovery (ratio between hearing gain and initial hearing loss, above 25%) and in severe hearing loss (threshold between 70 and 90 dB) 60% of good results (ratio above 50%).

[Sudden deafness: a randomized comparative study of 2 administration modalities of hyperbaric oxygenotherapy combined with naftidrofuryl].

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is one of the numerous therapies which have been proposed in the management of sudden deafness. It is presumptuous to claim the efficiency of any treatment in a pathology where both the origin and the actual rate of spontaneous recovery are unknown. The grounds of therapies are therefore empirical but the need of urgent therapy is dictated by ethics.

[Normovolemic hemodilution in the treatment of sudden deafness].

After the apparition of a sudden deafness, 45 patients (22 men and 23 women, with a mean age of 44 +/- 14.9 years) were treated with normovolaemic haemodilution performed with dextran 60. They were placed into 4 groups depending on their hearing loss: total loss: 10 cases; severe loss: 90 to 70 db.

[Unilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy following brief periods of intubation. Two cases (author's transl)].

One of these two cases (1 h 30 and 48 hours) was permanent. The cause of the paralysis seems to be either from compression of the nerve between the endotracheal tube cuff and the cricoid, or from compression between the thyroid ala and a dislocated arytenoid cartilage from use of an unnecessarily large tube. An anatomical study has helped to confirm this hypothesis and shows the presence of an ischaemic aera overlying the nerve at the level of its entrance into the larynx due to the endotracheal cuff.