Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

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 inflammation-promoted 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.