Project Details

Bottle-PAP: an Innovative 3D Printed Bubble CPAP for Low-Resource Settings

Brandon Tomlin, MD, MSCI

Summary

BACKGROUND: Respiratory failure is the leading cause of death for premature infants worldwide. A mainstay of treatment for these infants is Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) to provide respiratory support. GAP: Current commercial CPAP devices are expensive and difficult to repair, which is a barrier to their implementation in low-resource settings. In response, improvised CPAP systems have often used, though recent studies have shown high variability in provided pressures which may limit benefits and increase complications. HYPOTHESIS: We hypothesize that our 3D printed CPAP device will accurately produce pressures equivalent to commercially available bubble CPAP devices and provide more accurate pressures with improved usability compared to current improvised systems. METHODS: Our first study will compare average delivered pressure of the 3D printed system to a commercially available system used in high-resource NICUs. Our second study will compare pressure accuracy of the 3D printed CPAP to a common improvised system when assembled by nurses and respiratory therapists. Our final study will evaluate user experience and design feedback from nurses at partner sites in Nigeria, where improvised systems are currently in use. RESULTS: Pending. IMPACT: Our study will demonstrate 3D printed CPAP’s substantial equivalence to commercial CPAP devices as well as improved functionality compared to improvised systems already used in low-resource settings. The innovative use of 3D printing will serve as a proof of concept for shifting the paradigm of medical device production from an importation model to locally produced model.