LAUSR

We read the letter by Drs. Drew and McCaul about our study about the laryngeal handshake and appreciate their interesting comments regarding our study. We agree that it is important to identify the midline of the neck accurately when performing cricothyroidotomy to avoid vascular injury. Regarding the identification of the cricothyroid membrane, some of the identified points were superimposed in figure 3 as described in the figure legends, and thus, there were more points outside of 5 mm from midline than shown in figure 3. Analysis of our data shows accurate identification of the midline (defined as within 5 mm of the midline) in 111/123 (90.2%) cases when using the laryngeal handshake method compared to 101/123 (82.1%) cases when using simple palpation and was statistically significant (P = 0.041). Although direct comparison may be inadequate due to the different subspecialties of physicians, this may be another aspect of our results that shows non‐inferiority of the laryngeal handshake method compared to simple palpation. Moreover, considering that most unexpected difficult airway situations are encountered by anaesthesiologists, without an ENT surgeon at the bedside, the utility of the laryngeal handshake method performed by anaesthesiologists in identifying the midline is reassuring. We look forward to reading Drs. Drew and McCaul's study when published as more evidence is required on this important topic.