Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects

Every day, patients admitted to critical care units are experiencing complications and often*fatal deteriorating conditions. Severe complications leading to the syndrome of multiple organ*dysfunctions or MODS result in a mortality rate at 41%. The MODS condition is characterized*by a severe acute inflammatory reaction leading to vascular thrombosis, septic shock and*impaired oxygenation of organs and tissues. Inflammatory blood markers can be prescribed*for patient monitoring but results are obtained hours or days after sampling. In conditions*where rapid medical decisions are required to improve the likelihood of patient survival, those*blood tests are often of no value. We propose in this grant application a new bed side*ultrasound technology to continuously monitor the state of inflammation for optimum patient*treatment.*Red blood cell (RBC) aggregation is a strong marker of inflammation and has the unique*advantage of offering continuous monitoring capability through ultrasound imaging. This grant*proposes the development and integration of technologies to provide point-of-care patient*monitoring based on the analysis of high-frequency ultrasound spectral data to measure the*time-varying clustering of RBCs flowing within a superficial vein of the arm or ankle.*Preclinical results in a porcine model confirmed the capability of monitoring inflammationpromoted*aggregation of RBCs with ultrasound. The proposed algorithm is patented and we*propose the development of a portable instrument for use in restricted areas as surgery*rooms and intensive care units. This instrument will consist in a bracelet attached innocuously*to the patient and embedding high-frequency ultrasound transducers, an occluding device to*control the blood flow, and a positioning device to collect ultrasound data processed by a*miniaturized computer instrument to provide feedback to clinicians on the state of RBC*aggregation.