Design Evolution of an Everting Emergency Airway Device

Abstract

Airway management is critical to patient survival in cases of cardiac arrest, drug overdose, and trauma. In 2021, there were nearly 150,000 reported cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest with over 90% leading to death. Current methods of establishing airways in response to cardiac arrest require a high level of expertise, and improper use can result in serious side-effects and death. This poses a need for a safer Emergency Airway Device (EAD). Our solution is based on everting vine robots, which are pressurized tubes that passively navigate via tip extension. A dual-deployment configuration of sealing cuffs and breathing channels allows for resuscitation in the case of both esophageal and tracheal deployment. This paper summarizes the development efforts and performance characteristics of two previous designs of the EAD before introducing a new prototype that is enabled by novel manufacturing techniques. Through iterative development and testing with anatomically accurate airway phantoms, performance of each of the following metrics are shown to be in acceptable ranges for clinical viability: everting pressure (111 cm H 2 O), everting forces (0.25 N), airway sealing ratio (1.3), burst pressure safety factor (2.9), and deployment success rate (100%). The proposed Everting Airway Device concept shows promise for future refinement and integration with automated deployment mechanisms and breath delivery systems.