Intubation using the gum-elastic bougie while wearing personal protective equipment

To determine whether application of a gum-elastic bougie (GEB), a visual stylet used to improve success rates of difficult intubations, reduces the time, and number of attempts to achieve successful intubation while wearing personal protective equipment (PPE).

A randomized cross-over study comparing orotracheal intubations performed on an AirMan® Mannequin, using either a semirigid stylet or a GEB, while wearing an active hood with a charcoal impregnated suit and butyl rubber gloves.

Simulation training field of the Israel Defense Force Medical Corps.

27 military physicians and 23 paramedics (PMs).

Comparing intubation with and without using the GEB while wearing PPE.

Airway (AW) control was considered successful if the "lungs" of the mannequin ex-panded during bag ventilation. Three unsuccessful attempts or a procedure exceeding 60 seconds were regarded as a failure. Correlations between parameters of self-assessment of skills and successful intubation were also determined.

With the GEB, success rate was lower (82 percent versus 100 percent, p = 0.002), more attempts were needed (1.4 ± 0.7 versus 1.0 ± 0.2, p = 0.005) and time-to-achieve AW control was longer (43.6 ± 14.6 sec-onds versus 23.1 ± 10.5 seconds, P < 0.001) than without it. Participants with high self-assessment of GEB-assisted AW management skills needed less attempts to perform successful intubation with GEB than participants with low self-assessment (1.0 ± 0.0 versus 1.4 ± 0.8, p = 0.001), but not less time to achieve it.

While donning PPE, the use of GEB (versus semirigid stylets) did not reduce the time or the number of attempts necessary to achieve successful intubation.