Background: Intubation is one of the most important anaesthetic skills. We developed a robotic intubation system (Kepler intubation system, KIS) for oral tracheal intubation.
Methods: In this pilot study, 12 patients were enrolled after approval of the local Ethics board and written informed consent. The KIS consists of four main components: a ThrustMaster T.Flight Hotas X joystick (Guillemot Inc., New York, NY, USA), a JACO robotic arm (Kinova Rehab, Montreal, QC, Canada), a Pentax AWS video laryngoscope (Ambu A/S, Ballerup, Denmark), and a software control system. The joystick allows simulation of the wrist or arm movements of a human operator. The success rate of intubation and intubation times were measured.
Results: Eleven men and one woman aged 66 yr were included in this study. Intubation was successful in all but one patient using KIS at a total time of [median (inter-quartile range; range)] 93 (87, 109; 76, 153) s; in one patient, fogging of the video laryngoscope prevented intubation using KIS.
Conclusions: We present the first human testing of a robotic intubation system for oral tracheal intubation. The success rate was high at 91%. Future studies are needed to assess the performance and safety of such a system.