Magnetically guided orotracheal intubation

To describe a novel endotracheal intubation technique, magnetically guided intubation (MGI), and its rate of success in inexperienced medical students and interns using an airway mannequin model.

This was a prospective, descriptive study of 25 medical students and interns participating in an introductory course on emergency medicine without prior experience in human orotracheal intubation. Magnetically guided intubation consists of a strong external magnet placed over the cricothyroid membrane to guide the introduction of a standard endotracheal tube containing a stylet with a magnetized tip. An airway mannequin was placed in a rigid cervical spinal collar to increase the difficulty of the intubation, and each student performed two sequential intubation attempts using MGI. The proportions of successful intubations and the time to complete intubation were determined. Descriptive statistics were used to describe point estimates and 95% confidence intervals for means and proportions of continuous and categorical data, respectively.

Of 25 participants, 19 were students and six were interns. Their mean age was 27 years, and 76% were male. The overall proportion of successful intubations using MGI was 80% (95% CI = 69% to 91%). Of 24 intubations, 48% were attempted without visualization of the vocal cords; 67% were successful (95% CI = 46% to 87%). The mean time required to complete intubation was 17.0 seconds (95% CI = 14.5 to 19.5 seconds).

A novel method of orotracheal intubation using magnetic guidance is described as achieving a high rate of successful intubations when performed by inexperienced intubators.