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The likelihood of difficult airway in thoracic surgery increases in the presence of associated cancer of the pharynx or larynx. The difficulty is greater when a double lumen tube must be inserted in these conditions, and various newly developed optical devices offer solutions for managing such cases. We report on 2 patients with expected difficult airway who were scheduled for lung resection. In both cases, intubation was accomplished through the AirTraq laryngoscope while the patient remained awake. Awake patient tolerance is facilitated by this laryngoscope, because the tube can be inserted without changing the position of the tongue or placing pressure on the vallecula.

Transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE) recordings make it possible to assess cochlear normality objectively by informing of the integrity of active mechanisms. TEOAE recorded in different age groups give us information for diagnostic procedures and reflect the effects of cochlear aging and degenerative processes. Two thousand three hundred sixty-seven TEOAE recordings were made in persons with normal hearing ranging in age from 3 days to 50 years. The findings did not vary from the first year of life until the fourth decade, when TEOAE indicated cochlear aging, although the hearing threshold remained unchanged.

We have correlated in 16 patients (32 ears), the modifications de EOEs before and after sound stimulation of the contralateral ear. The recording of the EOEs has been performed in a sound proof room with ILO 88 from Otodynamics Ltd., the analysis has been made with the ILO 88 V.3.5 software. We have tried to study the modulator rol of the medial efferent coclear system on the external ciliated cells. In the results we observe a decrease of the amplitude in the EOEs when the contralateralmears is stimulated a white noise, in relation with the nonstimulation situation. When pures tones are used contralateral stimulation the decrease in the EOEs amplitude takes place in the same frequency spectrum as the pure tone used.