3D printed valves with snorkeling masks for CPAP

thingiverse

During COVID-19 pandemic, a high number of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome created a great demand for intensive care admission and invasive mechanical ventilation procedure (IMV). Because of the high number of patients, a lack of resources for fighting off the pandemic might happen. In this study, additive manufacturing was used to rapidly produce valves for final use with full-face snorkeling masks as part of medical devices for continuous positive airways pressure (CPAP), a non-invasive ventilation (NIV) procedure. A series of 2,200 valves were fabricated and used in contaminated with COVID-19 virus patients who presented hypoxia symptoms and respiratory distress. Around 30-40% of patients had their blood oxygen saturation level (SpO2) improved over 93% and could avoid or delay IMV and ICU admission. These results present a reduction of 3 to 4 weeks of patient intubation, improving the availability of ICU beds in hospitals that are working in a risk of shortage of such unities during the pandemic. Thus, this study shows the feasibility of using additive manufactured valves with snorkel facial masks to support medical devices for NIV procedures.