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General Dynamics helps adapt firefighter masks for COVID-19 patients

London researchers are partnering with experts from General Dynamics Land Systems Canada to connect firefighter masks to hospital machines to help COVID-19 patients breathe.

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London researchers are partnering with experts from General Dynamics Land Systems Canada to connect firefighter masks to hospital machines to help COVID-19 patients breathe.

Researchers at Lawson Health Research Institute, the medical research arm of London’s hospitals, Toronto’s University Health Network (UHN) and engineers at London-based GDLS-Canada got to work retrofitting the kind of masks worn by firefighters so they can be used with existing hospital breathing machines and keep patients off invasive mechanical ventilators.

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The clinical trial at London Health Sciences Centre will include up to 50 participants. The modified mask already has been tested on about 15 coronavirus patients at LHSC.

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“We wanted to create something that would give us the best of non-invasive ventilation while also giving us the best of protecting the care providers and other patients around the infected patient,” said Tarek Loubani, an emergency room doctor at LHSC and associate scientist at Lawson.

“When we move quickly, directly to invasive ventilation or intubation, we’re subjecting the patient to more danger, to more complications, to longer hospital stays. When we didn’t have any other way around it, it was fine, but that’s exactly why we wanted to do this.”

Lawson Health Research Institute, the research arm of London’s hospitals, and General Dynamics Land Systems Canada are retrofitting firefighter masks for hospital use on COVID-19 patients. The masks, part of a clinical trial at London Health Sciences Centre, connect to existing breathing machines and are meant to reduce the need for invasive mechanical ventilation. (Supplied/Lawson Health Research Institute)
Lawson Health Research Institute, the research arm of London’s hospitals, and General Dynamics Land Systems Canada are retrofitting firefighter masks for hospital use on COVID-19 patients. The masks, part of a clinical trial at London Health Sciences Centre, connect to existing breathing machines and are meant to reduce the need for invasive mechanical ventilation. (Supplied/Lawson Health Research Institute)

The masks use a 3D printed piece to connect to bilevel positive airway pressure (BPAP) or continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines, devices commonly used to treat sleep apnea. The hospital versions of the machines are more powerful than the at-home models people with sleep apnea use at night.

Unlike traditional CPAP or BPAP masks that cover the nose, mouth or both, the firefighter mask has two tight seals; one around the nose and mouth and another around the whole face. Patients breathe in and out of a filter that captures the virus before it’s released into the air.

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Not every COVID-19 patient that is put on a ventilator needs that high a level of medical intervention, Loubani said. Some should be treated in hospital with less invasive methods, like CPAP or BPAP machines, but can’t because the traditional masks don’t make a tight seal and can vent virus-laden air into the room, Loubani said.

A ventilator, a breathing machine that involves a tube being inserted into the airway of a patient, reduces that virus venting risk significantly, posing less of a transmission risk for front-line, health-care workers and other patients.

“There are countless CPAP and BPAP machines idling around the world while all resources go toward invasive ventilation,” UHN anesthesiologist Azad Mashari said in a statement.

“Our mask aims to put these machines back into the clinician’s toolkit. By eliminating air leaks, we can improve patient safety and significantly reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19 for health-care workers and other patients.”

The design is open source so other medical device companies can manufacture the masks, Loubani said. It took the research team and GDLS-Canada six days to develop the mask and connector.

“GDLS-Canada responded quickly to the urgent need to support those on the COVID-19 health care front lines during this global health emergency,” GDLS-Canada’s communications manager Doug Wilson-Hodge said in a statement.

“The innovative design was very much a collaborative effort between all parties to contribute solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

jbieman@postmedia.com

twitter.com/JenatLFPress

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