Forces applied during laryngoscopy and their relationship with patient characteristics. Influence of height, weight, age, sex and presence of maxillary incisors.

The relationships between patients' height, weight, age, body mass index, gender and presence of maxillary incisors and a series of laryngoscopic factors have been studied. These included the duration of laryngoscopy, maximally applied force, mean applied force and the integral of force over time. There was a positive correlation between height and weight and laryngoscopic factors. Sex and age also showed a positive correlation but these could be explained by differences in height, weight and the presence of maxillary incisors. This latter factor was the dominant patient characteristic influencing the measured laryngoscopic factors. Use of these laryngoscopic factors as a measure of difficulty of laryngoscopy is discussed.