patientMpower and European ILD Registry & Biobank Collaboration
European ILD Registry & Biobank and patientMpower in Collaboration to Expand Understanding of Devastating Lung Condition
Giessen, Germany and Dublin, Ireland, 1st September 2022 - The European ILD Registry and Biobank (eurILDreg) and digital healthcare company patientMpower have confirmed a new partnership in a collaboration which aims to expand understanding of interstitial lung diseases (ILD), a group of usually devastating lung conditions.
The eurILDreg is Europe’s leading database of information from patients with ILDs, established to facilitate research into this lung condition and increase the chances of finding better treatment options for this currently incurable disease.
This new partnership will see patientMpower’s remote monitoring technology being used to track the lung function of ILD patients enrolled in the registry, via home spirometry and oximetry. This will enable the characterisation of longitudinal changes in patients’ lung function and gas exchange over the course of the disease, adding valuable data to that already collected by the registry. As a key indicator of disease progression, it is hoped that inclusion of home spirometry data will provide vital new insights to improve the understanding and treatment of ILDs.
Commenting on the announcement Prof Andreas Günther, eurILDeg coordinator, based at the University of Giessen, Germany stated;
“There is so much about ILD we don’t yet understand, such as why some patients progress so quickly whilst others stay relatively stable for many years. Spirometry and oximetry is a key measure in assessing disease progression, and expansion of the registry to include this important parameter will provide us with vital insights to help better characterise different ILD phenotypes.
“We are delighted to be collaborating with patientMpower in the collection of spirometry and oximetry data. Using the patientMpower platform will enable more frequent patient assessment than possible with clinic-based spirometry, allowing us to build up a detailed picture of patients’ lung function over time - potentially providing insights into changes in the disease course and disease exacerbations. Secondly, the technology will integrate patient collected data directly into the registry, reducing the burden of data collection.”
Dr Colin Edwards, Chief Scientific Officer at patientMpower commented;
"We are delighted that patientMpower’s technology will be used by the European ILD Registry. Our specialist technology is now being used in both care delivery programmes and clinical research in interstitial lung diseases, and we are committed to partnerships and collaborations that aim to improve the lives of people with this condition.”
This collaboration will initially see patientMpower’s technology being used by specialist centres at the University Hospital of Giessen and Marburg, Germany, led by Prof Andreas Günther and Bellvitge University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain, led by Prof Maria Molina-Molina, before being rolled out to other ILD centers sites across Europe.
ENDS
About Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD)
ILDs are a group of over 100 different conditions which may ultimately cause scarring (fibrosis) of the lungs. In clinical terms, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), hypersensitivity pneumonia and ILDs due to rheumatic diseases are most important and frequent forms of ILDs. The underlying cause of many ILDs is largely unknown and the treatment options available are limited.
About the European ILD Registry & Biobank
The European ILD Registry and Biobank (eurILDreg) is an extension of the European IPF Registry and Biobank (eurIPFreg), which was implemented by the European IPF Network (eurIPFnet), a European Research Association aiming to disclose the pathomechanisms of IPF and to develop novel treatment modalities. The eurIPFnet was funded by the European Commission (FP7) from 2008 through 2011. eurIPFreg was an integral part of the eurIPFnet. By switching from a clear focus on IPF to the entire field of Interstitial Lung Diseases (ILDs), the eurIPFreg is now expanded into the eurILDreg, which will include all patients with ILDs, not only IPF. The eurILDreg aims to collect data as well as biomaterials from > 4000 ILD patients from all over Europe. Adult and pediatric patients with all kinds of ILDs will be included into the registry without any selection bias. This big data set will be used to analyse the deep phenome, epi/genome, proteome, transcriptome, volatolome and imaging characteristics of ILD patients in order to greatly improve non-invasive diagnosis, assess the prognosis and decipher new treatment options for different types of ILDs.
About patientMpower
patientMpower is a digital healthcare company providing specialist healthcare technology solutions for the virtual care of patients with respiratory conditions. The patientMpower platform combines home monitoring of objective and subjective measures, patient-tailored insights and alerting features to enable clinicians to deliver high quality patient-centric specialist care and empower patients to better manage their own conditions. Their technology is used by specialist centres, in both clinical care delivery and in clinical trials, across Europe and the US.