Endotracheal Tube Holder and Bite Guard Research

Endotracheal tubes (ETT) are secured during surgery and ICU care so that they are not accidentally removed from the airway. The position of the tip of the ETT is important and must not vary much within the trachea. The standard technique for securing an ETT is to use tape to attach it to the upper lip and face. The technique is cheap and simple, but suffers from certain drawbacks. First, the upper lip is mobile and thus even when well secured, the tube can move within the trachea due to this mobility. Second, conditions on the face such as sweating, drooling, facial hair, skin flaking or breakdown, all interfere with the ability of the tape to adhere, thus reducing its efficacy. Furthermore, the tape itself can irritate and or injure the facial skin. The adhesive irritates skin and certain patients are allergic to these substances. Also, removing the tape can physically damage the skin, especially if the skin is vulnerable to sheer forces (such as elderly patients or patients on systemic steroids).

Patients that are intubated often need a bite block or bite guard inserted into their mouths. This serves two main purposes: 1) to prevent the patient from biting the ETT and occluding airflow, 2) to prevent the patient from biting their tongue, cheek, or lips causing injury. Furthermore, endoscopic procedures are often performed on intubated patients and thus a bite block is needed to protect the delicate instrument from being bitten and damaged. For these reasons, many providers will insert bite blocks into the mouths of intubated patients. Many such devices exist on the market, but the most commonly used is the Guedel oral airway. This device is actually designed to increase airway patency during mask ventilation, and long term use of this device as a bite block has been linked to numerous complications including: 1)tongue swelling, often compromising the airway patency, 2) tooth damage, and 3)lip injury. Because of these shortcomings, specific ETT bite blocks have been developed, and some of these even double as an ETT securing device. However, these are usually made of hard, stiff materials that in and of themselves can injure the delicate oral structures. In summation, no single device that both serves as an ergonomic ETT holder and bite block has been successfully developed and marketed, and therefore the standard of care remains tape plus an oral airway.

The Haider airway is a combination ETT holder-securing device and bite block. Made of soft silicone rubber, the device was engineered from the ground up to serve those purposes with safety and comfort in mind. The device is FDA approved and in a pre-marketing trials phase to determine the efficacy of the product in specific clinical scenarios. Our institution has been tasked with testing the device in clinical scenarios where tape + oral airway has been historically problematic. We plan to compare this new device to tape + oral airway, the current standard of care in neurosurgical patients in the supine position. We hypothesize the device will be superior to the standard of care in both efficacy and patient comfort.