Medical Futures Innovation Award for Addenbrooke’s doctor’s invention

An Addenbrooke’s doctor’s invention has won two top prizes at the Medical Futures Innovation Awards – a Dragon’s Den-style assessment of new healthcare ideas from around the world. The device – called the PneumaScanTM – monitors a patient’s breathing without any contact with their body. At the awards ceremony in London yesterday, it came first in the respiratory section, and was also named as the overall best business proposition of all the winners.

 

 

Assessing breathing can be vital – but existing spirometry equipment, which directly measures the air flowing in and out of the mouth, cannot be used by many patients. Until now it has been impossible to monitor premature babies, young children, chest injury or transplant patients accurately without using more invasive procedures such as placing a tube in their airway. The same problems arise with people who are unconscious, or who have had a stroke.

 

The new system was developed by Dr Richard Iles, a consultant respiratory paediatrician at Addenbrooke’s, along with Cambridge University’s Department of Engineering and PneumaCare Limited, a local company which is now producing the PneumaScanTM instrument.

 

“Carrying out lung function tests on some patients is very challenging,” said Dr Iles. “If the patient doesn’t understand what they need to do – or if they don’t want to do it – then we don’t get a useful result.”

 

The PneumaScanTM achieves the same results as the traditional measurements from a spirometer – but the crucial difference is that it does it using light instead of physical contact. The technology behind it is based on 3D motion capture technology originally developed in the computer game and film industries.

 

 

With the patient lying, sitting or standing, a small video projector casts a checkerboard pattern onto their chest and abdomen. As they breathe in and out, their chest rises and falls – and the projected pattern changes shape. Two cameras, one either side of the projector, record the changing images and feed them to a computer, where they combine to give a 3D reconstruction of the chest.

 

PneumaCare’s algorithms analyse the visual reference points of the checkerboard pattern, with the result showing changes in the volume of the patient’s chest – in other words, how deeply and how quickly they are breathing and also what muscle groups are being used. This means the system can also analyse many of the visual indications of exactly how a patient is breathing.

 

“This non-invasive technology has great potential for a range of specialties, including anaesthetics and the emergency department,” said Dr Iles. “But it will be particularly valuable in the clinic for patients under the age of six with problems like cystic fibrosis and asthma.

 

“In addition, many adult lung conditions like COPD may begin in early childhood – so if PneumaScan makes it possible for us to identify them earlier, we will be able to start treatment earlier.”

 

Clinical trials at Addenbrooke’s are about to start – and the technology has further applications outside human health. Work is soon to start on a project at the Cambridge Vet School.

 

“It’s simple, fast, and compact,” said Dr Iles. “You could use it anywhere from alongside a cot to the back of an ambulance. It could be used for home monitoring to help keep patients out of hospital – or even for mass screening in schools or in the workplace.”

 

The Medical Futures Awards are run on a not-for-profit basis to help turn ideas into solutions that improve clinical outcomes for patients and provide cost-saving benefits. The programme started in 2001 and since then, past winners have secured over £100 million in funding.

 

The founder of the awards, Dr Andy Goldberg OBE, consultant surgeon at London’s Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and a senior academic for University College London, said: “The winners were chosen by a panel of distinguished experts from the thousands of entries received and they deserve every success for their creativity, commercial viability, and most importantly potential impact on patients. I continue to be excited by the inspiration and sheer drive and determination shown by all of our entrants.”

 

More information about the awards is available at

> Medical Futures

 

More information about the PneumaScanTM is available at:

> PneumaCare

 

 

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