A Yankauer is a rigid, curved suction tool used in hospitals and clinics to clear fluids, secretions, and debris from a patient’s mouth and throat. It’s one of the most common pieces of equipment in any medical setting where airway management matters, from operating rooms to emergency departments to bedside care on hospital floors.
Design and Key Features
The Yankauer (pronounced “YANG-kow-er”) is a one-piece plastic instrument with a long handle and a bulbous, slightly curved tip. The curve follows the natural shape of the mouth and throat, making it easier to reach the back of the oral cavity without poking or scraping tissue. The tip has small holes along its sides rather than a single large opening at the end. These side holes distribute the suction force across a wider area, which reduces the chance of the tip latching onto soft tissue and causing injury.
Most Yankauers are made from clear or blue-tinted shatterproof plastic, so clinicians can see the fluid passing through and quickly judge what’s being suctioned. The handle typically has a thumb port, a small hole you can cover with your thumb to activate suction and release to stop it, giving precise control over when and how hard the device pulls. At the opposite end, a ribbed universal connector attaches to standard suction tubing, which connects to a wall-mounted or portable vacuum source.
What It’s Used For
The Yankauer’s primary job is oropharyngeal suctioning: removing saliva, blood, vomit, or other fluids from the mouth and upper throat. This comes up constantly in clinical care. During surgery, anesthesia suppresses the reflexes that normally keep the airway clear, so a Yankauer stays within arm’s reach to suction away secretions that could block the surgeon’s view or compromise breathing. In emergency medicine, it’s used during initial airway management to clear debris from the throat before placing a breathing tube.
Beyond the operating room and ER, Yankauers are used for patients who can’t manage their own secretions due to sedation, neurological conditions, or recovery from procedures. Nurses use them at the bedside for patients who are too weak to cough effectively or who are at risk of aspirating (inhaling fluid into the lungs). They’re also a staple in dental procedures and post-anesthesia recovery units.
Yankauer vs. Flexible Suction Catheters
The Yankauer isn’t the only suction device in a hospital. Flexible suction catheters are thin, soft tubes that can be threaded deeper into the airway, through the nose, or down into a breathing tube to reach the trachea and bronchi. The Yankauer, by contrast, is limited to the mouth and upper throat because of its rigid shape. That rigidity is actually its advantage in the oral cavity: it doesn’t collapse, it’s easy to aim precisely, and it moves larger volumes of thick fluid quickly.
For situations involving massive fluid volumes, like heavy bleeding or large-volume vomiting, standard Yankauers can fall behind. Research comparing suction devices found that commercial large-bore suction catheters clear fluid roughly 22 milliliters per second faster than a standard Yankauer across all fluid thicknesses. Some emergency teams create makeshift large-bore devices by attaching an endotracheal tube to a meconium aspirator, though these still don’t match the speed of purpose-built large-bore options. For routine oral suctioning, though, the Yankauer remains the default choice.
Suction Pressure Settings
The vacuum source connected to a Yankauer needs to be set within safe pressure ranges to avoid damaging delicate tissue. For adults, suction pressure should stay at or below 150 mmHg. Children require lower settings, no more than 120 mmHg, while infants are limited to 100 mmHg and newborns to 80 mmHg. Too much pressure increases the risk of tissue trauma, while too little won’t clear secretions effectively.
Risks of Suctioning
Suctioning with a Yankauer is a routine procedure, but it’s not without risks. The negative pressure and direct contact with tissue can injure the mucous membranes lining the mouth and throat, potentially causing bleeding. The stimulation of suctioning can also trigger protective reflexes like gagging, coughing, or vomiting, and in some cases can provoke laryngospasm (a sudden tightening of the vocal cords) or bronchospasm (tightening of the airways in the lungs).
A more serious concern is vagal stimulation. The vagus nerve runs through the throat area, and mechanical irritation there can slow the heart rate. For this reason, each pass with the Yankauer is typically kept to 10 to 15 seconds. Prolonged suctioning can also reduce oxygen levels, since the vacuum pulls air out along with the fluid. Keeping each episode brief minimizes both of these risks.
Infection Control and Replacement
Yankauers are single-patient-use devices. They come individually packaged in sterile wrapping, and once that packaging is opened, the tip is no longer sterile and can become contaminated with bacteria from the patient’s mouth and the surrounding environment. Guidelines from Vanderbilt University Medical Center recommend keeping the Yankauer sealed in its packaging until the moment it’s needed. If one is opened but never used, it gets discarded when the patient is discharged rather than saved for the next patient. Between uses on the same patient, the tip is typically kept in a clean, enclosed space to limit bacterial growth in the moist residue inside the tubing.