The 44th Geneva Inventions Exhibition, THE WORLD’S MOST IMPORTANT, took placein Geneva, Switzerland from 13-17 April 2016. More than 700 exhibitors from 45 countries participated.Inventions were presented by companies, inventors, universities, private and State institutes and organizations. 60000 visitors from all five continents - professionals who came to "talk business" - meetings with 650 journalists from both the written and spoken press and television from throughout the world were there. My invention had the chance to win a gold medal. This medal and diploma are dedicated to all mycolleagues at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. The following is a brief introduction of the device and its implication:
Emergence of Endoscopy has revolutionized the daily practice of the physicians providing safer and faster direct diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for gastrointestinal diseases. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy devicesare composed of a flexible tube which contains an optical fiber system that delivers the light to the tip of the tube for providing proper visualization of the gastrointestinal tract.As the tube passes through the patient’s mouth, it can hurt the teeth. Furthermore, the patient might inadvertently bite the tube and damagethe optic fibers of the device. To avoid this incident, a bite block device is routinely used. Nowadays, upper gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures are performed not only in awake but also sedated /anesthetized patients with spontaneous breathing. Sedation or anesthesia is often associated with decrease in muscle tone, especially and more importantly in the tongue, which in turn compromises the airway and ventilation of the patient. In other surgical conditions, an airway device is usually used to overcome the airway occlusion. Nevertheless, this would be impossible to be implemented in patients under upper gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures as all these patients have both bite blocks and endoscopy tubes in their mouths prohibiting the entrance of any further device into the oral cavity. To overcome the compromised ventilation, the patients must be returned to supine position and the endoscopic procedure be terminated. “Integrated mouthpiece and airway for endoscopic procedures” is composed of two core parts: A mouth piece which would serve as a mouth piece allowing endoscopy tube passage and prohibiting the damage of the optic fibers of the device by the patient bite; and an elevating bar which in fact elevates the tongue after the patient is either sedated or anesthetized and prohibits airway occlusion.
Advantages of this novel device are but not limited to: Increased patient safety eliminating the probability of airway occlusion by the tongue; Decreased staff work load, as insertion of both devices separately would require more time and work, especially if the patient is sedated/ anesthetized or in positions other than supine; Decreased endoscopy time for the endoscopist and the consequent decrease in waiting time for the patients in the waiting list; Decreased costs for both the hospitals and patients as one device rather than two separate devices would be used.