Respiratory guard system developed to reduce ventilation complications

An Israeli medical device company, Hospitech Respiration, has developed a respiratory guard system to reduce ventilation complications in intubated patients and minimise the exposure of clinical teams to contamination.

The AnapnoGuard works alongside and is complementary to the ventilator. It provides automated airway cuff pressure management and automated evacuation of the subglottic secretions.

These two automated functions running in synchrony, can reduce the likelihood of pulmonary infections and the development of pneumonia that tend to develop in a significant percentage of ventilated patients, including severe Coronavirus ventilated patients. In cases where an infection has already developed, it alleviates the symptoms and helps to shorten the recovery time.

The device is already approved by FDA 510(k), CE, CFDA and patients have already been successfully treated with the AnapnoGuard in the US, Israel and China.

It has been in use in several hospitals in China for the last two years, where it was also used to treat ventilated COVID-19 patients at the Tongji University Hospital in China’s Hubei Province, the original epicentre of the pandemic. 

In Israel, it has been used in several hospitals, including Rambam MC, the largest academic centre in northern Israel.

Prof. Gil Bolotin, director of the Department of Cardiac Surgery at the Rambam Medical Centre in Haifa, Israel said: “For the past two years, my department has been using the AnapnoGuard system when treating high-risk ventilated cardiac patients. During this time, we have seen a significant reduction in the number of patients who developed lung and pulmonary infections following intubation.”

The AnapnoGuard device consists of an automatic control unit (AG100s) and a proprietary multi lumen endotracheal tube [AG ETT], which prevents ventilator-associated complications, including Hospital Acquired Pneumonia (HAP) Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP) and injury to the trachea.

Yoav Venkert, CEO of Hospitech Respiration said: “The outbreak of COVID-19 has highlighted the need for hospitals to find new and innovative solutions to medical challenges they are facing. Right at the beginning of the outbreak, we responded to a spike in the demand for airway management solutions to treat Coronavirus patients in ICUs by offering to provide our devices pro bono to help medical teams treat ventilated Coronavirus patients in Israel.

“While the COVID-19 outbreak created a massive surge in demand for ventilators, which is expected to increase the ventilators market by 400% in 2020 in comparison to last year, the number of pulmonary and airway complications associated with the use of ventilators is expected to negatively affect the ventilators market growth. The Anapnoguard device provides the best solution to address these complications.”