Pre-operative Evaluation of Voice as a Predictor of Difficult Laryngoscopy

Airway assessment and prediction of difficult airway forms an important part of pre-anaesthetic check-up. The current predictive tests lag in some form or other to accurately predict difficult airway. The present study evaluates voice with the help of Praat software in 220 patients and provides a quantitative data in form of formants to predict difficult laryngoscopy. Adult patients aging 18-60 years of either sex and those belonging to ASA PS I and II who are scheduled to undergo elective surgeries under general anaesthesia will be recruited for participation in this study. Patients with significant oral or laryngeal pathologies who are unable to pronounce vowels, those having psychiatric issues or mental retardation and those requiring awake intubation will be excluded from the study. Voice recording, its analysis and the Modified Mallampati Test will be performed for all eligible patients during pre-anaesthetic check-up. Standard technique of anaesthesia will be used and Cormack- Lehane Grade will be noted after direct laryngoscopy. Primary objective will be to correlate voice formants with the Cormack Lehane grade. Secondary objectivee will be: to compare voice formants and Modified Mallampati class and to correlate combination of voice formants and Modified Mallampati class with Cormack-Lehane Grade. Collected data will be entered in Microsoft excel and then will be analysed and statistically evaluated using SPSS-PC-25.0 version. Appropriate statistical tests will be applied.