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Module 07 · Anaesthesia Blueprints

Airway and pre-operative assessment: exam notes and MCQs

Prepare airway and pre-operative assessment for postgraduate anaesthesia examinations with structured notes, exam-style questions and referenced explanations from standard textbooks and current guidelines.

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Exam notes in this module

Difficult airway management — DAS 2025
Preparation, Plans A–D, peroxygenation, confirmation, the physiologically difficult airway and human factors.
Rapid sequence induction
Indications, preparation, drugs, cricoid force and failure planning.
Anaesthesia for ENT, laser and shared-airway surgery
Shared airway principles, laser safety and airway fire, jet ventilation, tubeless techniques, tonsillectomy and post-tonsillectomy bleeding.

Sample questions

Q1. After failed intubation, failed face-mask ventilation and failed supraglottic airway (CICO), the next step is:

  1. Another intubation attempt
  2. Insert a different second-generation supraglottic airway
  3. Emergency front-of-neck access (scalpel–bougie–tube)
  4. Wake the patient
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Answer C: Emergency front-of-neck access (scalpel–bougie–tube)

In CICO with a paralysed patient, proceed to eFONA without delay: scalpel cricothyroidotomy using the scalpel–bougie–tube technique.

Exam style: EDAIC

Q2. On direct laryngoscopy only the epiglottis is visible and no part of the glottis. The Cormack-Lehane grade is:

  1. Grade 1
  2. Grade 2
  3. Grade 3
  4. Grade 4
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Answer C: Grade 3

Grade 3: epiglottis only, glottis not seen (3a if epiglottis can be lifted, 3b if it sticks to the pharynx). Grade 4: neither epiglottis nor glottis visible.

Exam style: EDAIC

Q3. In the Mallampati classification (Samsoon–Young modification), visualisation of the soft palate and only the BASE of the uvula corresponds to:

  1. Class I
  2. Class II
  3. Class III
  4. Class IV
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Answer C: Class III

Class I: soft palate, fauces, entire uvula, pillars. Class II: soft palate, fauces, portion of uvula. Class III: soft palate and base of uvula. Class IV: hard palate only.

Exam style: NEET-SS Anaesthesia

Study the whole module

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