New life-saving technique at Universal Hospital

Dr John George Karippacheril.

An anesthesiologist from Universal Hospital, Abu Dhabi, has described a novel technique for performing videolaryngoscopy using Android smartphones. The medical procedure of laryngoscopy is a routine, often life-saving procedure used within the Operating Rooms, Emergency Departments, and Intensive Care Units. It involves the placement of a medical grade plastic tube into the trachea (windpipe) of the patients through the larynx (vocal cords) to control the respiration and/or provide anesthetic medication. This ubiquitous procedure can, at times, be difficult to perform due to various anatomical differences encountered in patients such as morbid obesity, short jaw or neck, congenital anomalies, trauma, etc. that make it difficult to visualise the vocal cords relying on eyesight alone. A failure to secure the airway with laryngoscopy and endotracheal intubation can be a life threatening medical emergency.
Although the older technique of direct laryngoscopy has been around for decades, recent advances in video technology to overcome the difficulty of directly visualising the vocal cords, has been made available for about a decade.
"Commercial solutions for use in hospitals and/or placing these devices in ambulances can incur a lot of cost. This is when we sought to address this need through an inexpensive videolaryngoscopy technique. When plugged into personal computers, tablets, or smartphones, it works perfectly fine to visualize the vocal cords," said Dr John George Karippacheril, specialist - anesthesiology at Universal Hospital. He had collaborated with Dr Minh Le Cong, an Emergency Medicine specialist from Australia, and several other researchers from Manipal University, India, in perfecting the technique. The cost of the proof of concept device assembly can be as low as $7.