All those interested in feline anesthesia will have been as excited and intrigued as the Docsinnovent team were at the recent launch of the Association of Advanced Feline Practitioners (AAFP) Feline Anesthesia Guidelines – written by a group of anaesthesia experts from the USA.
The guidelines are a great read – very detailed and containing up to date information on many aspects of feline anaesthesia.
Of course the DI team were particularly interested in what the authors had to say about airway management – coverage starts on p. 616 of the article. The authors acknowledge the data that most anaesthetic deaths occur soon after anaesthesia ends, and are commonly cause by airway obstruction.
Coverage of v-gel begins on p. 618 of the article, and the authors give a good summary of the evidence available regarding patient safety and comfort and ease of use for the clinician. Table 11 on p. 619 give a very useful comparison of the various airway management option. The only thing that we would question on this table is the statement that v-gel can be “easily dislodged”. Regular users will confirm that, when the correct sized v-gel is selected and tied in place, v-gels do not move easily.
The article can be viewed here