Future of robotic anaesthesia.

Editor—I enjoyed reading the study by Hemmerling and colleagues. A robotic technique would fill a gadget loving, coffee drinking anaesthetist with enthusiasm, but I would like to understand the fundamental point of what are we trying to achieve by using this technique of tracheal intubation. I wonder whether the development of this technique is driven by increasing patient safety, or reducing airway complications, challenging the time from induction of anaesthesia to start of surgery, and decreasing morbidity and mortality. I believe that this line of research does not carry much importance without a clinically important hypothesis. I do appreciate the effort involved in this project; it is an interesting academic article, and that is where it stands, without any hypothesized clinical use in the future.