The following is a summary of “Surgical mask-to-mouth ventilation as an alternative ventilation technique during CPR: A crossover randomized controlled trial,” published in the October 2023 issue of Emergency Medicine by Tangpaisarn, et al.

Cardiac arrest outcomes can be improved with chest compression and rescue breathing. However, the effectiveness of rescue breathing using surgical masks has yet to be explored. For a study, researchers sought to compare the tidal volume produced by mouth-to-mouth ventilation (MMV) with that of surgical mask-to-mouth ventilation (SMV), mouth-to-surgical mask ventilation (MSV), and surgical mask-to-surgical mask ventilation (SSV) in a manikin.

In a crossover randomized controlled trial, 42 medical personnel volunteers were randomly assigned to perform four ventilation techniques: MMV (no protective equipment), SMV (participant wearing a mask), MSV (manikin wearing a mask), and SSV (both participant and manikin wearing a mask). The average tidal volume and the proportion of adequate ventilation, evaluated using a manikin, were compared across different ventilation methods.

The average tidal volume of MMV (828 ± 278 ml) was significantly higher than that of MSV (648 ± 250 ml, P < 0.001) and SSV (466 ± 301 ml, P < 0.001), but not SMV (744 ± 288 ml, P = 0.054). Adequate ventilation was achieved in 144/168 (85.7%) cases in the MMV group, a proportion significantly higher than in the SMV (77.4%, P = 0.02), MSV (66.7%, P < 0.001), and SSV (39.3%, P < 0.001) groups. The willingness to perform SMV was higher than that to perform MMV.

MMV resulted in a superior average tidal volume compared to MSV and SSV. However, SMV achieved a comparable average tidal volume to MMV, indicating its potential as an alternative method with improved willingness for implementation.

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0735675723004059