Description du projet
Un suivi innovant pour la jaunisse néonatale
La jaunisse néonatale, une maladie courante due à des taux élevés de bilirubine, affecte environ 60 à 80 % des nouveaux-nés dans le monde. L’absence de diagnostic ou une détection tardive peuvent entraîner de graves lésions cérébrales, voire même la mort du nouveau-né. Le projet Picterus, financé par l’UE, optimisera, validera et commercialisera un système de smartphone fiable et à faible coût fournissant un diagnostic et un suivi à distance de la jaunisse néonatale. S’appuyant sur l’optique biomédicale et la photonique, l’outil Picterus détecte les niveaux de bilirubine en prenant des photos de la peau des bébés et en interprétant automatiquement les résultats. Il promet de réduire les coûts de suivi des patients et, plus important encore, le nombre de cas de lésions cérébrales permanentes dues à un mauvais diagnostic ou à une absence de diagnostic.
Objectif
Worldwide, 135 million children are born each year and neonatal jaundice, a common condition caused by elevated levels of bilirubin, affects approximately 60 to 80% of newborns; 114.000 of these newborns die yearly and 63.000 children will survive with kernicterus (severe brain damage) due to undiagnosed or late detection of jaundice. Just in Europe and USA, we estimate that neonatal jaundice costs healthcare systems €1.684 million per year. Current solutions for jaundice diagnosis require expensive hospital laboratory facilities for blood testing and newborn monitoring by professional healthcare workers. Additionally, low-income countries cannot afford blood tests and longer hospital stays to detect and treat jaundice properly.
To solve this problem, Picterus has created a remote, reliable and low-cost tool with an innovative Smartphone-based system to provide remote diagnosis and monitoring of neonatal jaundice. Our unique technology based in biomedical optics and photonics detects bilirubin levels by taking babies ́ skin pictures, automatically interpreting the results.
Picterus can be included in the routine newborn tests at hospitals worldwide and can also be used by parents and midwives at home to monitor the baby, thus reducing healthcare system costs in three ways: reducing extra days at hospital after birth for jaundice monitoring, reducing outpatient follow-up of patients and reducing the number of cases of permanent brain damages due to failed or missing diagnosis.
H2020 funding will allow us to leverage the development of Picterus and successfully commercialize it in the European market first, and worldwide afterwards.
Champ scientifique
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesoptics
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringinformation engineeringtelecommunicationsmobile phones
- engineering and technologymedical engineeringmedical laboratory technologylaboratory samples analysis
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencemachine learning
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinateur
7010 TRONDHEIM
Norvège
L’entreprise s’est définie comme une PME (petite et moyenne entreprise) au moment de la signature de la convention de subvention.