At the upcoming Medica 2008 conference in Düsseldorf next week, KM Medical out of Auckland, New Zealand will be showing off its newly developed high tech portable neonatal resuscitator. The company hopes that its new device will decrease the incidence of damage to lung parenchyma in patients that are exquisitely sensitive to ventilator induced trauma.
From the company:
This automatic, portable neonatal resuscitator and ventilator has been designed to reduce the incidence of volutrauma and barotrauma. These respiratory difficulties can lead to neonatal chronic lung disease (CLD), the major long-term pulmonary complication of preterm birth affecting about 20% of infants who need respiratory assistance. Ten million newborns worldwide each year need resuscitation assistance. More than 1 million babies die annually from complications of birth asphyxia.
“Whereas current neonatal resuscitators control airway pressure only, the KM Medical Neonatal Resuscitator controls tidal volume, airway pressure and respiratory rate simultaneously. This is so important in neonates, who are so small and extremely difficult to ventilate,” noted Richard McCulloch, KM Medical’s Managing Director and co-founder.
“We also saw a huge gap in the Transport Ventilator market, as current units are large, heavy and expensive. Our unit is the size of a torch, weighs less than 1kg can use air as well as oxygen and can run from a battery pack, aircraft power, or a vehicle cigarette lighter therefore has very wide applications as a transport ventilator,” noted Gilbert Kuypers, Technical Director and co-founder of KM Medical.
KM Medical is developing two versions of the device, a recovery-table version with full options and a simpler version for transport. The device has attracted international attention as a finalist in the 2008 Bayer Innovation Awards for Research and Development.
Press release: KM Medical Unveils the Next Step in Neonatal Resuscitation at Medica 2008 …
Device page…