Mallampati score

Uncommon card · No. 183004

The Mallampati score, or Mallampati classification, named after the Indian anaesthesiologist Seshagiri Mallampati, is used to predict the ease of endotracheal intubation. S.R. Mallampati originally described this classification in 1985 in a prospective study of 210 patients undergoing elective surgery. The original Mallampati scoring consisted of three classes. Later in 1987, Samsoon and Young introduced a fourth class, in which visualization is restricted to the hard palate. The test comprises a visual assessment of the distance from the tongue base to the roof of the mouth, and therefore the amount of space in which there is to work. It is an indirect way of assessing how difficult an intubation will be; this is more definitively scored using the Cormack–Lehane classification system, which describes what is actually seen using direct laryngoscopy during the intubation process itself. A high Mallampati score (class 3 or 4) is associated with more difficult intubation, as well as a higher...

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