New clinical trial data presented today at the European Respiratory Society Congress demonstrates that daily use of the patientMower platform for recording of home spirometry and oximetry is feasible in patients with Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD).
The study, led by Dr Mel Wickremasinghe at Imperial College NHS Trust, addresses a key question regarding adherence to home spirometry for clinical care of patients with ILD. The Innovate UK funded programme enrolled 60 patients with ILD at multiple NHS sites across the UK.
Studies have shown that frequent monitoring of spirometry is highly clinically valuable in ILD; with 3 month change in FVC being associated with mortality in IPF, and frequent home spirometry being shown to have greater sensitivity than periodic hospital-based readings in prediction of progression in IPF. Such high frequency monitoring is not practical using hospital-based assessment, so home spirometry is an attractive alternative approach to traditional clinic monitoring. However, adherence to home spirometry is a frequently raised concern for this approach in clinical practice. The patientMpower platform offers a number of features to promote patient adherence, with an easy-to-use patient facing app, Bluetooth enabled device integration, reminders to prompt recording and in-app guidance on spirometry technique.
This three-month study demonstrated that patients with ILD (mean age of 68 years) recorded home spirometry and oximetry on 91% of study days using the patientMpower platform. Over three quarters of patients (77%) recorded home spirometry on at least 70% of study days over the three month period.
The study demonstrated that high frequency home monitoring of spirometry and oximetry is feasible in patients with ILD. Given the high sensitivity of frequent spirometry in predicting disease progression in ILD home spirometry is a realistic and highly valuable alternative to hospital-based assessment.
The patientMpower platform is used across multiple ILD centres in UK, US and Ireland for clinical care of patients with ILDs. A recently announced collaboration with the European ILD Registry and Biobank will also see the expansion of patientMpower into European ILD centres. A large UK multicentre clinical trial to examine the health economic benefits of remote monitoring to enable virtual care for patients with ILD has recently received ethics approval, and will begin recruitment later this year.