Enhanced stratification of COPD patients via integration of a digitally enabled biomarker Point-of-Care test within a Remote Patient Monitoring tool

中性粒细胞弹性酶（NE）与几种呼吸系统疾病的严重程度有关，包括慢性阻塞性肺疾病（COPD），其中感染和炎症的反复循环导致免疫细胞主动释放NE，导致肺损伤。活性NE可预测肺功能丧失，是监测疾病活动性的最具信息性的生物标志物。ProAxsis开发了一种新颖的即时检测（NEATstik），可以在10分钟内快速测量活性NE。邓迪的研究人员已经证明，NEATstik检测呈阳性的患者可能患有肺部细菌感染，这些患者最有可能从抗生素中受益。此外，他们还使用neatstick来识别在接下来的一年里病情恶化风险最高的患者。因此，NEATstik可以支持适当的抗生素处方，并监测其效果，以确保呼吸系统疾病患者接受最可能对他们有效的治疗。NEATstik的另一个关键优势是它可以在患者家中使用，从而避免不必要的医院之旅，这是后covid环境中的一个关键考虑因素。为了使其可行，需要对进行测试所需的样品处理进行增强。如果NEATstik结果与其他呼吸健康措施相结合，可以获得更多有价值的信息。这是ProAxsis有限公司（NEATstik的开发商）、过程与创新中心（CPI）（世界知名的产品工程专家中心）和万达健康（将新技术集成到远程患者监测系统中的专家）之间的合作项目。合作伙伴将共同大大加强NEATstik所需的样品处理，并将该测试与多种其他呼吸健康措施整合到远程患者监测工具中，使患者能够在家中进行测试，其医疗保健专业人员可以观察NEATstik测试结果以及其他重要健康数据。

The enzyme Neutrophil Elastase (NE) is associated with the severity of several respiratory diseases, including Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), where repeated cycles of infection and inflammation leads to active NE release from immune cells, causing lung damage. Active NE is predictive of lung function loss and is the most informative biomarker to monitor disease activity.ProAxsis has developed a novel point-of-care test (NEATstik) which allows active NE to be quickly measured within 10 minutes. Researchers in Dundee have shown that a positive NEATstik test identifies patients suffering from a lung bacterial infection, who are most likely to benefit from antibiotics. Additionally, they used NEATstik to identify patients at highest risk of suffering from exacerbations over the following year. Thus, NEATstik can support appropriate antibiotic prescribing, and monitoring of their effect, to ensure that respiratory disease patients receive the treatment that is most likely to work for them.An additional key advantage of NEATstik is that it could be used in the patient's home, thereby avoiding unnecessary trips to hospital, a key consideration in the post-COVID environment. To make this viable, enhancements are needed for the sample processing required for conduct of the test. Further valuable information could be gained if the NEATstik result was combined with other respiratory health measures. This is a collaborative project between ProAxsis Limited, who developed NEATstik, the Centre for Process and Innovation (CPI), a world-renowned product engineering expert centre and Wanda Health, specialists in integrating new technologies into remote patient monitoring systems. Together, the partners will significantly enhance the sample processing required for NEATstik, and integrate the test alongside multiple other respiratory health measures into a remote patient monitoring tool, allowing patients to conduct the test at home, and their healthcare professionals to observe the NEATstik test result alongside other important health data.