On world COPD day, GADx is delighted to introduce our prototype test, 
(Headstart), a remote patient monitoring platform measuring five biomarkers in urine. Headstart is being evaluated to identify early or confirm the first signs of exacerbation with sufficient reliability and clarity for the patient to know when to seek medical attention or not. Early recognition and prompt treatment can result in reduced hospitalisations and improved clinical and economic outcomes.
COPD affects over 400 million people worldwide and is predicted to be the third leading cause of death by 2030. COPD is characterised by daily symptoms of breathlessness, cough and wheeze with persistent impairment in lung function tests. At times there is worsening of the symptoms leading to exacerbations. Exacerbations are caused by several triggers including viral and bacterial infections but also due to a series of smaller perturbations culminating in destabilisation of the disease. COPD exacerbations can be harmful because they can cause further damage to the lungs therefore, preventing an exacerbation from occurring can improve quality of life and reduce risk of death.
Most measurements of inflammation in COPD have focused upon sampling blood or sputum at the time of the exacerbation compared to stable visits several weeks apart. These approaches have not led to an adopted test due to lack of sensitivity and specificity and challenges in obtaining the samples at times that could then alter management. The challenge is to develop near patient tests that can measure and deconvolute the heterogeneous inflammatory response that precede the clinical presentation of an exacerbation.
GADx have partnered with a number of experts along the way ranging from statisticians, bioinformaticians App developers, reader developers, clinical teams, health economic specialists, funding institutions, we have collectively been able to make breakthrough progress in the development of this technology. Today, on world COPD day, we are proud to announce that our paper ‘’Artificial neural network risk prediction of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations using urine biomarkers’’ has been published in ERJ Open Research.
Link to press release.
Our findings suggests that the identified urine biomarkers are promising in discriminating COPD exacerbations from stable COPD, can be measured at home with a lateral flow reader and mobile technology and can identify biological changes as early as 7 days prior to a clinical diagnosis of a COPD exacerbation. Further trials are required to validate the test and demonstrate cost-effectiveness and improved health outcomes.
Professor Chris Brightling from the University of Leicester, UK, which is part of the National Institute for Health and Social Care Leicester Biomedical Research Centre said: “It would be better if we could predict an attack before it happens and then personalise treatment to either prevent the attack or reduce its impact. We wanted to develop a predictive test that would act like a personal weather forecast of an impending flare-up. We need to do more work to refine the AI algorithm with data from a bigger group of patients. We hope this will allow us to create AI testing for COPD patients that will learn what is ‘normal’ for each person and forecast a flare up in symptoms’’
Dr Gita Parekh, Head of Respiratory at GADx commented ‘’Every COPD exacerbation leaves behind permanent, irreversible lung damage. Headstart is being evaluated to predict exacerbations by detecting biological changes before signs of symptoms and before patient damage has occurred. A test that can help to slow the rate of disease, keep those living with COPD stable and reduce the risk of serious health complications is game changing. We thank everyone who has been involved and supported us throughout the years, it has been a team effort, all working towards the same goal – improving the quality of life for people living with COPD’’