Category Archives: Equipment

AirwayHowTo, Endoscopy, Equipment, Flexible scopes, Intubation, Supraglottics

Video: Aintree intubation technique

Video

Technique for using the Aintree Intubating Catheter (AIC) to exchange between a supraglottic airway (SGA) and endotracheal tube (ETT).  This is typically required when an airway has been ‘rescued’ with an SGA that is not designed for direct intubation, with a narrow internal diameter or obstructions.  The Aintree has a length of 55cm, internal diameter of 4.8 mm (not 4.2 as stated in the video) and external diameter of 6.0 mm, allowing a paediatric fibrescope or flexible intubating vide endoscope (preferably 4 mm or less) to be passed through the AIC, into the trachea, and then an ETT railroaded after removal of the SGA over the AIC.  If that sounds confusing, watch the video!

Tips/tricks/advice/critique?  Leave a comment!

The Difficult Airway Society (DAS) have a nice poster guide to help you remember how to do this – click the image below to open/download. (Open access).

DAS AIC Guideline - Click image to download PDF directly.
DAS AIC Guideline – Click image to download PDF directly.

AIC_abbreviated_Guide_Final_for_DAS

AirwayHowTo, Endoscopy, Equipment, Intubation, Supraglottics

Video: Flexible endoscopic intubation through SGAs

Video

A description of the technique for intubating through a supraglottic airway that offers a sufficiently large internal bore to allow an appropriate-sized endotracheal tube using an adult fibreoptic or flexible video endoscope.  Take note of the method of providing ventilation during the endoscopy!

As usual, this is an unscripted video, and constructive critique is welcomed to help us improve the educational offering.

AirwayHowTo, Equipment, Intubation, Supraglottics

Video: Overview of intubating through SGAs

Video

Yip, another whirlwid tour, this time of the situations and considerations that may lead to intubating through a supraglottic airway.  Each method will be expanded upon in later videos.

These videos are made off-the-cuff and can certainly be improved, so if you have suggestions, please put them in the comments!

AirwayHowTo, Equipment, Supraglottics

Video: Using supraglottic airways

Video 1 Comment

A whirlwind tour through selection, indications, precautions, sizing and troubleshooting.  For an overview of the types and classifications, see this post.

These videos are all unscripted, so if you have suggestions for improvement, please leave a comment below!

Equipment, Supraglottics

VIdeo: Supraglottic airway overview

Video 1 Comment

A brief (7 min) overview of the some of the types, classification and classes of SGAs, as part of some preparatory material for SMACCdub Airway Workshop participants.

For the next video on using SGAs, see this post.

These videos are all unscripted, so if you have suggestions for improvement, please leave a comment below!

Equipment, Intubation, Research

Four methods of endotracheal tube passage in simulated airways – Poster from ICEM 2016

Here’s the poster by Kingma, Hofmeyr, Zeng, Cooramasamy and Brainard that has generated a fair amount of interest (>10k impressions on Twitter).  Full analysis hopefully coming soon to a journal near you.  Bottom line?  In a difficult airway, you’d best be using a bougie or stylet, no matter who you are.  As far as bougies go, preloading rather than railroading is faster and seems better.  Click on the image for a full-resolution PDF (2Mb).

Four_Methods_ETI_Poster_ICEM_2016

Want to talk about this?  Comment below or ping @surferkirst @rosshofmeyr @TheSharpEndCrew on Twitter!

Endoscopy, Equipment

Overview of the use of fibreoptic bronchoscopy in thoracic surgery

The well-known thoracic anaesthesia guru, Prof Jay Brodsky, has written a succinct and simple overview of the use of fibreoptic bronchoscopy (FOB) in thoracic anaestheisa, which is equally applicable to the modern flexible video endoscopes.   If you are looking for a brief primer (including the appropriate use for placement of bronchial blockers and double-lumen ETTs), read the article on the Airway E-Learning site here.

Importantly, he elucidates the reasons for becoming proficient in the clinical placement and confirmation of DLTs without the use of a FOB, which is of particular relevance here in the developing world.

AirwayHowTo, Equipment, Video laryngoscopy

Why is my C-MAC Pocket Monitor not working (again)?

Video

Despite making a previous post and video to explain the way to make sure the device switches on, I regularly get told that the Pocket Monitor (PM) for our C-MAC video laryngoscope is not working/charging/switching on. This is in fact a design feature to prevent accidental activation or discharge. Watch here to find out more:

Thanks to the lovely Sam Adams for playing along…good career in acting if anaesthesia were to ever become boring!