First patients enrolled in POS-Disease X
Did you know that LAB-Net plays a key role in the laboratories site selection process in most ECRAID-Base studies? These include the POS-Disease X study, which in December 2023, enrolled their first patient at the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands.
The EU-funded ECRAID-Base project aims to establish a European, multidisciplinary clinical research network for emerging infectious diseases that is globally connected. At the heart of this project are six Perpetual Observational Studies (POS), in which LAB-Net's extensive pan-European network of microbiology laboratories contributes expertise and support.
The POS-Disease X study is led by the Erasmus Medical Centre. The study aims to evaluate the use of a generic protocol for enrolling immunocompromised patients in an observational study for any unexplained febrile illness with unusual clinical presentation and/or epidemiology, and of likely viral aetiology.
The patient population includes immunocompromised patients with a suspected infectious illness of unexplained etiology upon initial clinical evaluation. Patients who are immunocompromised due to treatment of malignant diseases and hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients are not included in this study. In case of an emerging disease outbreak, inclusion criteria can be extended to include any adult patient with suspected or confirmed infection with an emerging viral pathogen.
How ECRAID-Base and LAB-Net work together
LAB-Net supported the operational team throughout the entire site selection process, from the beginning to end.
The laboratory site selection started in January 2023. Through the information gathered from the feasibility questionnaires LAB-Net assessed the eligibility of the local laboratories to participate in this study. Once the laboratories were selected, LAB-Net provided a laboratory-specific collection and management training (along with the site initiation). These include detailed instructions on how to collect, process and store samples.
During the study, blood samples for serum and EDTA plasma, throat swabs, as well as urine and stool samples are collected. If available, remaining materials from the routine samples are collected as well. The needed materials for the sample collection and storage is provided by LAB-Net. The samples will be shipped to Laboratory of Medical Microbiology at the University of Antwerp (LMM) on a regular basis for further processing, redistribution to other labs for analyses and long-term storage in the biobank.
Read more about LAB-Net’s role within POS-Disease X and ECRAID-Base here.