KidsBrainIT: 2017-2021

ERA-NET NEURON JTC2016 KidsBrainIT - Using IT Innovations to Improve Childhood Traumatic Brain Injury ICU Care.

About KidsBrainIT - Our Most Recent Funded Project

The benefits of multicentre collaboration and data-sharing anonymised physiological data for research in patients with traumatic brain injury is evident from the work of BrainIT in the adult brain injury domain. There was no similar initiative in the paediatric domain before 2015. Dr. Lo (Paediatric Intensivist – Edinbrugh) and Dr. Piper (BrainIT Coordinator) joined forces and develop the paediatric equivalent of BrainIT initiative (KidsBrainIT) in 2015. Its Phase 1 project is funded by an EU grant (ERA-NET NEURON)

Click Here to Download a Presentation about KidsBrainIT

Click Here to Download the Study CRF

There are two main aims of the KidsBrainIT Phase 1 project:

  1. Better understanding CPPopt and ICP dose response in childhood brain trauma: In Phase I of the KidsBrainIT project, we are testing two specific hypotheses: After sustaining traumatic brain injury (TBI), paediatric patients with a longer period of measured cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) maintained within the calculated optimal CPP (CPPopt) range have (1) an improved global clinical outcome; and (2) better tolerance against raised intracranial pressure (ICP) and that there are three different age dependant threshold from 2-6 years, 7-10 years and 11-16 years. Using prospectively collected physiological data from the PICU bedside, we will calculate CPPopt offline using the technology developed by the Leuven group (the LAx–CPP plots).

  2. Establishing a paediatric specific anonymised physiological data-bank for research use: Similar to the Adult TBI work conducted by BrainIT, the KidsBrainIT project aims to demonstrate that by implementing methods for collecting and sharing anonymised standardised routinely generated intensive care high resolution data (at least minute by minute), better secondary research and quality improvement use of routinely generated clinical and physiological big data is possible.

KidsBrainIT (approved by the Steering Group) and launched at our Barcelona meeting in 2015, is a long term, multi-centre multi-national multi-disciplinary research initiative.

The KidsBrainIT Phase 1 project has prospectively recruited 146 patients from 16 paediatric intensive care units (PICU) across 6 countries (UK, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy and Romania). Final results will be made available after publications in peer-review journals from autumn 2021.