Search

The laryngeal mask airway (LMA) is regarded as a safer supraglottic airway for general anesthesia compared with conventional endotracheal tubes. We report a case of bilateral vocal cord palsy temporarily observed after using the LMA, which required urgent tracheotomy. Severe swelling of the arytenoid suggested that bilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy was caused by prolonged compression on the pyriform fossa. One month later, vocal cord movements were fully recovered. It should be noted that bilateral vocal cord palsy is a possible complication associated with use of the LMA.

An experiment was designed to study the target predictability subserving pursuit eye movements.Horizontal eye movements were measured by binocular recording of the electronystagmography (ENG) in 18 normal subjects. Targets were projected on a screen and moved horizontally at a constant velocity (12°/sec) and fixed-cycle (0.1 Hz). The maximum displacement of the target was 30° from center. Near the center of the screen, targets were caused to disappear by a mechanical shutter for three short intervals (417, 833, 1250 msec). Horizontal angular deviations of these intervals were 5°, 10°, 15° respectively.Smooth pursuit eye movements were maintained and no saccadic eye movements were recorded by tracking 5° center off stimuli. Under 10° and 15° center off stimuli, searching saccades occurred after 300 msec from the disappearence of the target and corrective saccades occurred after 200-240 msec from the reappearence of the target. Smooth pursuit eye movements were maintained for about 300 msec without visual stimuli. Our results suggest that target predictability contributes to the pursuit system.