SPA-APA Meeting San Francisco 2007 1 Uncuffed versus Cuffed Endotracheal Tubes Markus Weiss, MD, Zurich, Switzerland During the last five decades, uncuffed tracheal tubes were recommended for routine use in children aged below 8 years. Cuffed tracheal tubes in patients younger than 8 years of age were only exceptionally used for special indications. In the last 10 years a change in clinical pra...

  Abstract   Background: Iatrogenic airway injury after endotracheal intubation and tracheotomy   remains a serious clinical problem. In this study we reviewed post-intubation and traumatic tracheal stenosis in 47 patients with a special attention to the cause, hense surgical treatment of the stenosis was performed and the results compared with the literatures.   Methods: Since February 1995 th...

background nosocomial infections including infections of surgical wounds, urinary tract and lower respiratory tract infections are a major public health problem in hospitals worldwide. bacterial infections in the lower respiratory tract especially due to gram negative bacilli, has remained a major complication of tracheal intubation in patients requiring ventilator equipments. objectives the ai...

UNLABELLED Tracheal secretion leakage might lead to ventilator-associated pneumonia. Standard tracheal tube cuffs are cylindrical in shape. Bronchial tree aspiration is observed in the presence of leakage past tracheal tube cuffs. The new TaperGuard tracheal tube has a cuff in the shape of a cone, preventing from the development of microtubules and microaspiration. The aim of the study was to c...

A number of problems have been reported with the use of standard length tracheostomy tubes in adult critical care patients. We measured the depth from the skin surface to the tracheal wall and the angle of the tracheal stoma during percutaneous tracheostomy. In vitro measurements were also performed on standard tracheostomy tubes. Comparison of in vivo and in vitro dimensions demonstrated that ...

Insects breathe using an extensive network of flexible air-filled tubes. In some species, the rapid collapse and reinflation of these tubes is used to drive convective airflow, a system that may have bio-inspired engineering applications. The mechanical behavior of these tracheal tubes is critical to understanding how they function in this deformation process. Here, we performed quasi-static te...

BACKGROUND This randomized single-blinded, cross-over study was done to evaluate the influence of the size of tracheal tubes on air leaks around the cuffs. METHODS In a benchtop model, the number of longitudinal folds on the cuffs was evaluated for different sizes of tracheal tubes. In an anesthetized patient study, thirty patients scheduled for elective surgery under general anesthesia were ...

BACKGROUND Water is known to have lubricating properties, thus it is used for lubrication of tracheal tubes to reduce airway injuries caused by intubation. However, there is no definite evidence to substantiate the beneficial effects of lubricating tracheal tubes using water for attenuating airway injuries. Moreover, the lubrication pretreatment may cause contamination of the tube, leading to r...