Technologies for advanced liver disease monitoring allow patients to stay at home

17 November 2014

The EC-funded D-Liver project has  developed a remote support system for patients with advanced liver disease to monitor their condition at home and save regular trips to hospital for tests and appointments with consultants.

One of the aims of D-LIVER is to hand back control to the patient. By developing a home monitoring and support system, connected to a central liver patient management system at the hospital, the project focuses on improving quality of life for patients at an advanced stage of the disease.

Such patients might be waiting for a transplant; they may have undergone liver resection, where the remaining organ is undergoing regeneration; or they may have unstable advanced disease, prone to episodes of deterioration.

Some 29 million Europeans suffer from chronic liver disease. It is one of the most common causes of death in the EU and doctors believe that tens of thousands of early deaths could be avoided with the right healthcare once the condition is diagnosed.

Using the system developed by d-LIVER, the patient inserts a 3cm x 3cm plastic chip into a measurement instrument and then simply has to prick a finger and squeeze a drop of blood which, when presented to the cartridge opening, will be immediately drawn into the system. The test results are carried out automatically and the results of the various parameters (sodium, potassium, creatinine, bilirubin, albumin and blood clotting time) become available within a few minutes.

D-LIVER has also created a wearable device to allow continuous monitoring of physiological parameters such as heart rate, temperature, activity, posture and changes in blood pressure. And it has a cognitive test on a tablet computer to measure concentration and brain function, since high liver toxicity often leads to a state of mental confusion (encephalopathy).

These tests can be performed as often as required, daily or weekly, and the results are available not just to the patient at home, but also the clinician monitoring the patient from the hospital.

Application to other diseases

As D-LIVER coordinator Prof Calum McNeil, of Newcastle University, explained: "The platform is generic. Once we get over the technological hurdles, it could be applied to all sorts of other disease conditions: eg management of cardiovascular, renal, neurological and inflammatory diseases."

Colleagues of Prof McNeil at Newcastle University, studying the economics of such a system, estimate it will save thousands of euros a year in hospital admission costs per patient, particularly those with hepatic encephalopathy.

Now the technology developed during the first two years of the project is to be tested on patients. Between now and the end of D-LIVER in September 2015, participants are preparing for a multi-center clinical trial of the system they plan to conduct in 2016, involving up to 150 patients in Newcastle, Berlin and Milan.

D-LIVER, which ends in September 2015, involves 14 partners from 7 countries and is receiving just under 11 million euros in funding from FP7-ICT for Health.

Further information

The project website: http://www.d-liver.eu/

Support for patients in the North of England by the adult liver patient support group based at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne: http://www.livernorth.org.uk/  

Source: Cordis: http://cordis.europa.eu

 

To top