The editorial ‘evaluation of airway equipment: man or manikin?’ [1] states, in negative terms, that increasing numbers of publications use manikins as surrogate research subjects and concludes that ‘it is time for serious researchers to move on to study patients rather than manikins.’
The accidental omission of any authors’ competing interests and the subsequent corrigendum [1] made relating to the Difficult Airway Society ‘ADEPT’ guidance on selecting airway devices and the subsequent strategy for equipment evaluation [2] introduce several important questions.
Firstly, is it appropriate for anyone on the Airway Device Evaluation Project Team (ADEPT) to have any business associations with airway equipment manufacturers at all? Surely decisions regarding future airway equipment advances may be incorrectly perceived to be acting in the financial interests of the companies involved and, therefore, not be a true assessment of the device if it were in direct competition with a successful contemporary piece of equipment.
Secondly, how can the manufacturer of a new device be assured of the confidentiality of the committee and that new equipment details will not be given to current airway manufacturers from their medical advisers on this committee? Dr Shaikh writes from the relatively unique stand-point of being a doctor who is also an inventor and manufacturer of medical equipment (The Age of Aquarius Limited™) and, in particular, anaesthetic airway devices (the Tulip® airway). As matters stand the Tulip® supraglottic airway device may be the very first new development that is submitted to ADEPT for evaluation. If a submission occurs we expect and would like to be assured of total confidentiality comparatif achat viagra.
The Tulip® airway has been through the multiple processes of bench-testing to destruction (MeDEC, Wales School of Medicine, 2007), mannequin testing (TRUCORP AirSim Multi, TRUCORP AirSim Advance, AMBU, Laerdal) [3, 4] M.H.R.A. approval, component testing in-vivo, C.E. marking, and has been studied in-vivo for at least 24 months. The Tulip® airway is now undergoing a human pilot study and will undergo comparative clinical trials in 2012. This airway has also been independently tested by consultant anaesthetists in Germany, Belgium, the U.S.A. and the United Kingdom yielding a body of knowledge about clinical efficacy that was never matched by older equipment when it was first introduced.