Magnetically guided orotracheal intubation

Objective: To describe a novel endotracheal intubation technique, magnetica lly guided intubation (MGI), and its rate of success in inexperienced medic al students and interns using an airway mannequin model. Methods: This was a prospective, descriptive study of 25 medical students and interns partici pating in an introductory course on emergency medicine without prior experi ence in human orotracheal intubation. Magnetically guided intubation consis ts of a strong external magnet placed over the cricothyroid membrane to gui de the introduction of a standard endotracheal tube containing a stylet wit h a magnetized tip. An airway mannequin was placed in a rigid cervical spin al collar to increase the difficulty of the intubation, and each student pe rformed two sequential intubation attempts using MGI. The proportions of su ccessful intubations and the time to complete intubation were determined. D escriptive statistics were used to describe point estimates and 95% confide nce intervals for means and proportions of continuous and categorical data, respectively. Results: Of 25 participants, 19 were students and six were i nterns. Their mean age was 27 years, and 76% were male. The overall proport ion of successful intubations using MGI was 80% (95% CI = 69% to 91%). Of 2 4 intubations, 48% were attempted without visualization of the vocal cords; 67% were successful (95% CI = 46% to 87%). The mean time required to compl ete intubation was 17.0 seconds (95% CI = 14.5 to 19.5 seconds). Conclusion s: A novel method of orotracheal intubation using magnetic guidance is desc ribed as achieving a high rate of successful intubations when performed by inexperienced intubators.