Teleflex endobronchial tubes recalled

Posted: 12/02/2015

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the UK’s regulator for the safety of medical devices, has issued a medical device alert to recall Teleflex manufactured endobronchial tubes.

The MHRA alert follows Teleflex’s voluntary field safety warning, which reported that the Cobb connector was disconnecting during use. The potential consequence of this happening was that the endobronchial tubes would fail to ventilate the patient and, unless the problem was corrected immediately, the patient would be at risk of respiratory distress and hypoxia.

Medical staff have been advised to remove the affected Cobb connector from use immediately and to replace it with an alternative connector from a batch that is not affected.

Arran Macleod, a product liability solicitor at Penningtons Manches, comments: “This is a real cause for concern. Lack of oxygen in a patient’s blood stream can lead to catastrophic brain injury and we see the effect of these injuries on patients regularly in our clinical negligence practice. It is imperative that this alert is acted upon immediately and any faulty devices, whether in intensive care units, paediatric wards or hospital theatres, be removed from use immediately."

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