Overcoming major challenges in bronchoscopy with PENTAX Medical ONE Pulmo™

Bronchoscopy is a clinical area which holds a particularly high risk of infection, making the need for clean instruments increasingly pressing. For bronchoscopies in Intensive Care Units and Emergency Rooms, a constant supply of readily available and sterile scopes is essential. 

Single-use consumables offer a ready-to-use solution to reduce the risk for cross-contamination, especially in critical situations. Additionally, pulmonologists can add single-use bronchoscopes to their Endoscopy Suite procedure to simplify the workflow and best meet each patient’s needs.

To support physicians in providing the highest quality care even in the most urgent situations, the PENTAX Medical ONE Pulmo^TM  was introduced in Europe: the single-use bronchoscope with superior suction power and HD image quality.

One central question: how to further improve patient safety in the procedure room?

When developing medical instruments, it is essential that the designer, developer, and healthcare provider are synergized to ensure clinically relevant products that strengthen a hospital’s current endoscopy suite. At PENTAX Medical we recognize this and are committed to addressing medical device hygiene challenges by continually innovating products and optimising processes. We take it a step further by integrating feedback from customer perspectives in the market, which have confirmed the need to focus on infection prevention in endoscopy.

The question of how patient safety can be further improved in the procedure room was central to the development of the ONE Pulmo™, keeping both the healthcare provider and patient in mind. Indeed, the design process of PENTAX Medical ONE Pulmo™ rested on listening to physicians to understand their needs and desires, as well as identifying what they are missing in their daily practice. Understanding the actual use and environment of single-use bronchoscopes resulted in the creation of an instrument that truly addresses pressing clinical unmet needs, bringing additional value in procedure rooms and further improving patient safety.

The PENTAX Medical ONE Pulmo™ in practice

We recently had the chance to personally visit Prof. Felix JF Herth, Medical Director of the Department of Internal Medicine and Pneumology, and his team at the Thoraxklinik in Heidelberg, Germany. They shared their clinical experience with the PENTAX Medical ONE Pulmo™ single-use bronchoscope, as well as the advantages for Interventional Pulmonology and Intensive Care – particularly in treating vulnerable patients with highly infectious diseases.

Prof. Felix Herth explains: “The big advantage of single use bronchoscopes is that you do not have a cross-contamination with whatever is on the scope. From a patient’s perspective, you can be sure that you use it in patient A and you throw it away, so patient B will never have any negative effects.” He continues: “Having had the chance to hold a couple of single-use scopes in my hand, I really can say that PENTAX Medical ONE Pulmo™ has the big advantage that it is comparable to what we’re normally using. The angulation is comparable, the suction capacity is comparable, maybe better.”

Ensuring high quality care without compromise

The PENTAX Medical ONE Pulmo™ single-use bronchoscope was developed to support physicians in situations where a risk patient is involved – either immunocompromised or with a disease. As such, it is a product that can expand the choices available to physicians, and uphold infection prevention and patient safety.

Combining sterility with impressive HD visualization, this innovative product broadens the clinical applications beyond those of a standard disposable scope. The HD image quality ensures exposure control, image enhancement (i-scan) and intuitive user interface. The ONE Pulmo also offers strong suction capacity, enabled by its large working channel, which provides up to 50% more suction capacity^[1] for quick and efficient patient care.

Additionally, the PENTAX Medical ONE Pulmo™ delivers comfortable scope handling and best-in-class tip angulation that requires no change in physician technique. Designed to mimic the ergonomics of a reusable endoscope, both manoeuvrability and device insertion are easy and intuitive, creating a seamless user experience.

As a portable system ready to use, the PENTAX Medical ONE Pulmo™ simplifies workflows. Single-use scopes indeed eliminate wait times between procedures, simplifying overall workflow and patient throughput. The sterile-packed scopes are ready to use anytime, anywhere, allowing quicker care delivery to the most vulnerable patients.

_{[1] The PENTAX Medical ONE Pulmo™ EB15-S01 has more suction capacity compared to scopes of similar outer diameter.}

Enabling physicians with Power of Choice

Different patients and varied medical procedures in endoscopy simply cannot be served with a one-size-fits-all product. For that reason, non-reusable devices, such as PENTAX Medical ONE Pulmo™, have become increasingly popular in practice. Yet studies, including life cycle assessments, are urgently needed to better assess their environmental viability.

PENTAX Medical is taking its own ambitious measures to make endoscopy more sustainable, by incorporating sustainable thinking in every aspect of its value chain. Patient safety remains the primary goal of PENTAX Medical, against which sustainability ambitions need to be weighted.

For that reason, enabling doctors to assess each situation and choose what is best for the patient on a case-by-case basis, is at the core of what PENTAX Medical believes in. The ultimate goal is to empower doctors with the Power of Choice (PoC) to best treat each patient, instead of letting the product decide what’s best for the patient – and the planet. In this way, they can ultimately make smarter, more sustainable choices.

Michael Unger, General Manager Marketing, Product and Business Development EMEA, explains: “Our main aim is to provide healthcare providers with more choice and additional options to treat each patient in the best way possible, whether for a routine or emergency procedure. As a smart innovator in the field, we are offering intelligent and innovative solutions for the best possible treatment of patients. As always, improved hygiene and patient safety are pivotal in our research and development.”

As the fruit of a continuous collaboration with physicians, this innovative product helps overcome three major challenges in bronchoscopy: reducing the risk of infections, delivering fast, efficient treatments, and having the right bronchoscope available at all times. Adding this endoscope to the current PENTAX Medical portfolio provides clinicians with more choice, and the ability to select whether to use a reusable or non-reusable endoscopy on a case-by-case basis.

Listen to our podcast, Patient Safety in Endoscopy, to learn more.