It is a disposable polyvinyl chloride tube used for both therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. It is mainly used for feeding in patients with lower cranial nerve palsies, in unconscious patients and in patients with PEM. It is also used for doing gastric lavage in cases of poisoning. It is used to aspirate gastric contents in case of hematemesis, intestinal obstruction, post surgery and gastric acid aspiration for gastric function tests. In the radiology department , it is used for barium studies. It may be passed in the duodenum for diagnosis of giardiasis.
The tube has 4 radio opaque markings, where each denotes the position of the tube in the stomach or duodenum. While passing the tube, be careful not to let the tube coil in the mouth. Rarely, violent passage of RT may cause perforation of stomach.
Ryle's Tube comes in a pre-sterile pack, sterilized by irradiation.
