PREEMIE - CARTAGENIA - PREEMIE-revolutionaire EEG-gebaseerde diagnostiek voor prematuren

From 01-04-2015 to 31-03-2016

Description

Functional brain development during the neonatal period is a critical time in the individual’s life span: medical conditions that compromise brain function (such as preterm birth) have a higher risk for neurodevelopmental problems, including cognitive deficits, motor disability and behavioral problems. Consequences are lifelong burdens for the individuals and their families, and a major socio-economic impact for the health care system and the society. One baby in ten is born premature worldwide, and is at high risk for brain injury, and these numbers are rapidly increasing in the Western world.  Hence, any alleviation of perinatal adversities holds promise of improved quality of life for the individual, and a major benefit for the society. 

Current NICUs’ practice to treat critically ill babies exhibits two major problems: (a) expert knowledge to assess brain injury is mainly not available and is highly expensive (1200 EUR/24h of EEG monitoring) and (b) overall monitoring costs per neonate need to be reduced, such that more babies can be monitored with EEG. As a result, the latest clinical recommendations advise the use of multi-channel EEG, and express the need for automated software solutions to support the interpretation of EEG-based diagnostics in critically-ill babies .  

The innovation goal is to complete the software development for preterm neonates, validate our algorithms in the NICUs at the bedside and to set-up a remote EEG data-viewing platform. To reach the innovation goals the following problems will be solved: 

1. Programming (IT) tasks: 

Set-up a cloud-based automated EEG processing in 5 NICUs for real-time bedside use. 

Research and Development tasks: Preemie: Assessment of the neurodevelopmental maturation in preterm neonates 

Clinical Validation tasks: Preemie validation – using the feedback from the NICU experts, the software efficiency will be tested in (at least) 5 NICUs 

Resulting in total number of 100 (=5x20) neonates to be analyzed with our software and consequently validated. 

Software adoption: - 10 NICU visits will be organized during this project. 

Remote EEG viewing and consultancy: Three EEG experts, key opinion leaders, will verify the execution of the algorithm using remote viewing platform, giving support to NICU users (less experienced with EEG). 

Team

• Herman Verrelst, External Partner
• Gunnar Naulaers, External Partner (External)
• Vladimir Matic, Grantee
• Sabine Van Huffel, Promoter

Financing

Funding: IWT - Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie 

Program/Grant Type: IWT IM - IWT Innovation mandates (IM)