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Matt McGrath: More than 60 million patients every year are intubated, which is placing
an endo-tracheal tube into their airway so that a doctor and medics can secure a patient's
breathing. Dr Dermot McKeown: During a lot of major surgery
when we are operating, for example, in the chest, within the abdomen, we give the patient
a muscle-relaxing drug so they do not breathe. And in order to breathe for them effectively,
we pass an endo-tracheal tube through the mouth, sometimes through the nose, but through
the mouth into the windpipe and blow up a cuff to provide a seal there. And then we
can blow gas in and out of the chest. MM: So this is the traditional Macintosh laryngoscope,
which was designed by Robert Reynolds Macintosh and his technician in, I believe, 1943. And
it has a tubular handle section and a curved blade, quite a shallow curve. The blade's
not sharp, and a bulb on here to illuminate the laryngeal area. So in use the laryngoscope
is placed into the patient's mouth, sweep the tongue to the side, and what I'm trying
to do now is to lift all of this anatomy, the jaw and the tongue and everything, so
that I can get a direct view of the vocal cords. And to do that I'm having to use quite
a significant level of force and trying not to put pressure on the teeth, which requires
some skill. DM: In a small number of patients that direct
line of sight isn't easy to achieve. And particularly if the person is inexperienced, the chance
of that failing to get the line of sight is more common. And even for experienced doctors
there are some patients in whom it is not possible to get a line of sight view of the
larynx. MM: As you can imagine, the patient doesn't
have oxygen during this critical time period, so anxiety levels go through the roof. So
up to 500 000-plus patients a year suffer serious trauma as a result of failed intubations.
So the need was to overcome those issues. The McGrath Series 5 Video Laryngoscope, which
was developed by Aircraft Medical, is the world's first fully portable video laryngoscope.
That means that it's the first video laryngoscope to have a camera and a screen incorporated
in the device with no external cables. Other video laryngoscopes have been developed in
the last five years, which have external screens and cables. The benefit of having this portable
device is that it's ready for use both in routine hospital or operating room procedures,
but also in emergency cases in ER and A&E, where time is short.
DM: Rather than the direct line of sight, this allows us to get the view on the screen
looking, if you like, around the corner where previously we couldn't see. So this really
converts many of those patients in whom we get less of an adequate view into, in our
experience, to virtually 100 per cent getting a good view of the larynx.
MM: So other features of this new product are, it's the first video laryngoscope to
have a disposable blade, which is guaranteed sterile for every patient. And the first to
have an adjusting length function, which means users don't have to carry different sized
blades as you do with a traditional laryngoscope. So in use, the main differences are the blade
is more curved than a traditional Macintosh, which means that it more naturally follows
the anatomy. Of course, the camera is positioned here, which looks around the corner for you.
And so in use, I would put the blade in the midline and I'm very delicately and gently
curving the blade around and I can see on the screen here an image of the vocal cords
with no problem. And I'm using no force and delicately I can take this tube and place
it straight into the vocal cords under vision, whereas otherwise I would not be able to do
that. And if you can imagine then, with a more difficult patient, where the head is
forward or the teeth is closed, I still have a perfect view of the vocal cords.
Following the end of the Wellcome Trust-funded project, we then began to sign distribution
contracts with specialist distributors. Our prime distributor in the US, exclusive distributor,
is LMA North America, who are in my opinion the leading brand in airway management, who
had developed their own airway product: the laryngeal mask. That since has - more than
three hundred million patients have been treated with that, so a phenomenally successful company.
And so by engaging with LMA, that gave us the opportunity to access about 7000 US hospitals,
plus the reputation of this company combined with our product, which was ground-breaking.
It's an excellent partnership that we've got. And in 15 other countries we're working with
other distributors already to address, probably accessing now more than 10 000 hospitals.