Researchers, doctors and engineers from the Mercedes Formula 1 team have developed respiratory assistance in less than a week to relieve the lungs of patients with the new coronavirus by avoiding placing them on respirators.
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The principle of this device, known by the acronym CPAP (continuous positive pressure ventilation), has been widely used in hospitals in Italy and China to help Covid-19 patients with serious pulmonary infections to breathe when the masks oxygen is not enough, University College London (UCL) said in a statement. UCL engineers have worked tirelessly since March 18 with doctors from University College London Hospital (UCLH) and the Mercedes team to adapt and improve a CPAP, which they achieved in less than one hundred hours of work.
The Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which approves medical devices in the UK, has now given the go-ahead to use the device, UCL said. A hundred devices will be delivered to UCLH for clinical trials before a rapid deployment in hospitals across the country, expecting a wave of patients arriving from Covid-19.
Reports from Italy indicate that about half of the patients on CPAP have avoided more invasive devices. CPAPs involve diffusing an air-oxygen mixture into the mouth and nose at a continuous rate, keeping the airways open and increasing the amount of oxygen entering the lungs. Invasive respirators, on the other hand, require strong patient sedation as well as connection to a tube placed in the patient's trachea.
The newly developed devices " will help save lives by ensuring that the limited number of respirators are used only for the most seriously ill, " said Prof. Mervyn Singer, an intensive care consultant. at UCLH, cited in the press release. In some European hospitals, in Italy or in Belgium, such respiratory aids have been designed by adapting diving masks.