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Abstract

Endotracheal intubations are performed on thousands of pa- tients each day. Intubation is achieved by inserting a small plastic tube down a patient’s trachea, allowing oxygen and anesthetics to be delivered directly to the lungs. The tube is held in place by inflating a small cuff on the distal tip, which also serves to seal the trachea. The use of a manometer to measure the pressure within the cuff is essential to keep the practice safe. Hyperinflation of the cuff can put too much pressure on the trachea, leading to tissue death and post-procedure patient discomfort. A hypo-inflated cuff results in a poor seal within the patient’s airway and can lead to ineffective positive pressure ventilation, or gastro-inflation, which can in turn lead to vomiting, putting the patient at risk for as-phyxiation. The latter complication can cause hypoxia and death. Manometers used to measure cuff pressure are costly, cumber-some, and potentially inaccurate. A pressure measuring syringe has been designed, tested, and verified to meet physicians’ needs for a simple, low-cost pressure measurement device. New data suggest that overblown cuffs are very common during surgery (cid:1) 2009, Abstract 3AP1-1, presented at the European Society of Anaesthesiology, Milan, Italy (cid:2) . In fact, most are inflated to a pressure than the recommended 25 cm H 2 O, and past studies on patients in critical care settings corroborate these observations (cid:1) Jaber, S., et al., 2007, “Endotracheal Tube Cuff Pressure Intensive Care The Need for Pressure Intensive Med., 3 3 pp. 917–918 (cid:2) . pressure-sensing device that gives physicians a tool to help avoid over- and underinflation of the endotracheal