A public-private partnership, involving input from clinical and industry partners, will investigate the use of computed tomography (CT) to improve diagnosis and treatment outcomes among patients with coronary artery disease.
The COMBINE-CT consortium is being coordinated by Philips, and has received a €6.5 million grant from the European Union’s (EU’s) Innovative Health Initiative (IHI). The project will generate evidence to support the benefits of CT across the care pathway through five multicentre clinical trials.
Partnering alongside Philips in the consortium are Université Lyon 1 Claude Bernard (Villeurbanne, France) and its affiliate entity Hospices Civils De Lyon (Lyon, France), Instituto de Investigación Biomédica de Salamanca (IBSAL, Salamanca, Spain), Amsterdam UMC Academic Medical Centre (AMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands), University Clinic Cologne (Cologne, Germany), Medical Research Infrastructure Development and Health Services Fund by the Sheba Medical Center (Sheba, Israel), Cardiologie Centra Nederland, Novo Nordisk, Consorcio Centro de Investigacion Biomedica en Red MP and EUPATI Foundation.
The trials include CODEX-1, which is designed to investigate the value of CT for definitive coronary artery disease diagnosis; CONVENE, to determine the clinical benefit of an end-to-end solution for coronary artery disease diagnosis, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) planning and availability of coronary CT angiography (CCTA) insights within the cath lab; EVOLVE, exploring the feasibility of CCTA-based follow-up of atherosclerotic disease severity in high-risk diabetic patients; the ImpaCT trial, assessing how non-invasive, low-resolution CCTA combined with high-resolution intracoronary imaging and artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to improve stenosis grading, plaque detection and detection of vulnerable plaque characteristics; and the SPCCT-STENT trial, investigation how photon counting spectral CT can be used to evaluate coronary artery bypass grafts and the patency of previously-implanted stents.
In a press release, Philips quoted figures indicating that coronary artery disease affects 2.5% of the global population and claims over nine million lives annually, with the number of patients expected to grow further due to the rise of obesity and diabetes worldwide.
The press release adds that the care pathway for the disease differs across hospitals and countries resulting in a difference in patient outcomes and mortality rates. For instance, it is estimated that 60% of the patients currently receive invasive diagnostic tests which they do not require.
“With the COMBINE-CT project we want to improve the care pathway for coronary artery disease, the most common heart disease,” said Bert van Meurs, chief business leader for precision diagnosis and image guided therapy at Philips. “The introduction of new technology creates more data that we can use for diagnosis and treatment. Due to interoperability challenges this information is not used to its full potential.
“In COMBINE-CT, we will work with top clinical centres and industry partners to open the data silos in the hospitals between different departments involved in the care of coronary artery disease patients, simplifying, and improving workflow for physicians, nurses, and technologists.”
