Dundee lends eHealth expertise to Europe-wide hypertension project
Published On Wed 9 Sep 2015 by Roddy Isles
The University of Dundee is contributing its internationally renowned expertise in eHealth and informatics to a major Europe-wide research project to improve diagnosis and therapeutic care for primary and secondary forms of arterial hypertension.
ENS@T-HT is a five-year European H2020 research project, co-ordinated by Paris-based Inserm, created to tackle these issues. It has funds of up €7.6m and involves 13 academic institutions from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia, and the United Kingdom, including the University of Dundee.
Hypertension affects up to 45% of the general population and is responsible for 9.4 million deaths per year worldwide. Even small rises in blood pressure are associated with increased risk of stroke and heart disease. However, despite a large array of available treatments, blood pressure is still not properly controlled in many patients.
Approximately 10% of current hypertension cases could be treated and cured if properly diagnosed. These include disorders of the adrenal gland that increase the production of hormones affecting blood pressure. Correct identification of these disorders is crucial to proper management of the underlying disease and prevention of cardiovascular complications. However, due to the complexity of diagnosis, proper treatment of these conditions can be delayed by several years, exposing patients to increased cardiovascular and metabolic risk and diminished quality of life.
Professor John Connell, Vice-Principal (Research) of the University of Dundee, said, “This is an important collaborative research project with the University of Dundee playing a central role here in managing the data from the project and developing novel approaches to analysis of complex clinical information.”
Dr Emily Jefferson, Director of Health Informatics Centre Services (HIC) and Co-Director of the Farr Institute of Medical Informatics at the University of Dundee, said, “There is a very strong record of expertise within the Health Informatics Centre, based in the Medical School here at Dundee, and this work will help consolidate some very important European research links.”
The main objective of the project is to develop a programme to improve diagnosis of various adrenal forms of hypertension, enabling curative treatments and preventing complications. This will be achieved using various cutting-edge ‘omics’ techniques to identify biomarkers in patients’ blood that provide a distinctive signature for their condition.
Useful biomarkers will also permit the stratification of patients, so that those most likely to benefit from particular treatments are identified in order to maximise the effectiveness and cost efficiency of treatment.
Dr Maria-Christina Zennaro, coordinator of ENS@T-HT at Inserm, Unit 970, Paris Cardiovascular research centre, said, “The ambition of this project is twofold: first we want to establish omics-derived biomarkers and validate their accuracy in the diagnosis of patients with adrenal forms of hypertension.
“Second, and most importantly for patients, we want to use these biomarkers to accelerate and optimise the diagnosis and management of these conditions. We can then stratify those patients who could most benefit from specific targeted treatment.”
Roddy Isles
Head of Press
TEL: 01382 384910
MOBILE: 07800 581902
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk