Statistical Indiscretions in Papers from the American Society of Anesthesiologists Closed Claims Project

To the Editor:—I read with interest the letter of van Zundert et al. about the valve leaks noted with the new extraglottic/supraglottic airway devices. However, there appears to be an unintentional error in their letter. In the first sentence, the authors mention that they are reporting six cases of spontaneous cuff deflation during a clinical trial with a new airway device, which sounds like these data were obtained from their ongoing study. At the end of this sentence, however, they cite a study by my colleagues and me carried out some time ago that aimed to compare airway efficacy of two supraglottic airway devices (CobraPLA vs. laryngeal mask airway) and showed better airway sealing pressures with the CobraPLA. I recommend this error be corrected and that the authors cite their own study, because we did not observe any clinical or numerical valve leaks with any of the airway devices in our study. Ozan Akça, M.D., University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky. [email protected]