Migraine is a common brain disorder, typically characterised by recurring, incapacitating attacks of 1-3 days of severe headache, autonomic dysfunction, and sometimes aura symptoms. The disease affects 15% of all European citizens including children, ranks among the WHO top 12 of most disabling and undertreated disorders, and is responsible for the highest socio-economic burden of any brain ailment in Europe.
Despite a great progress in the management of epilepsy, still one third of patients is refractory to available medications. The incidence of epilepsy is highest in infancy and 50% of children experience epilepsy-related comorbidities, such as developmental delay and autism. The development of epilepsy (epileptogenesis), extensively studied in animals, is barely studied in humans, as patients usually present AFTER the seizure onset.
The eSMART programme of work will demonstrate the effects of a real-time, mobile phone based, remote patient monitoring intervention on key patient outcomes and delivery of care provided to people with cancer during and after chemotherapy. Utilising the remote patient monitoring system, the Advanced Symptom Management System (ASyMS), will reduce the symptom burden experienced by patients receiving chemotherapy, improve their quality of life (QoL) during acute treatment and survivorship, and result in changes in clinical practice and improved delivery of care for patients with cancer.
Approximately 600-700 million people are infected by hookworm, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Hookworm infection ranks number one in terms of Years Lost from Disability from a neglected infectious disease, and among the top 3 in terms of lost Disability-Adjusted Life Years. HOOKVAC will be developing the first and only vaccine for human hookworm infection. A bivalent, low-cost vaccine candidate will be clinically tested for the first time in an African disease endemic population.
Aggression is a basic physiological trait with important roles throughout evolution, both in defence and predation. When expressed in humans in the wrong context, aggression leads to maladjustment, social impairment and crime. Despite this, knowledge about aggression aetiology is limited and current treatment strategies are insufficient.
Epilepsy is a major burden for patients and health systems worldwide. It is a common chronic neurological disorder affecting people of all ages, and the shortfall in existing treatments means that 30% of patients continue to suffer uncontrolled seizures. MicroRNAs (miRNA) are a recently-discovered, network-level layer of gene expression regulation that controls protein levels of entire signalling pathways.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability, leading to great personal suffering to victim and relatives, as well as huge direct and indirect costs to society. Strong ethical, medical, social and health economic reasons therefore exist for improving treatment. The CENTER-TBI project will collect a prospective, contemporary, highly granular, observational dataset of 5400 patients, which will be used for better characterization of TBI and for Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER).
Amputation of a limb may result from trauma or surgical intervention. The amputation traumatically alters the body image, but often leaves sensations that refer to the missing body part. In 50-80% amputees, neuropathic pain develops, also called phantom limb pain (PLP). Both peripheral and central nervous system factors have been implicated as determinants of PLP. Also, PLP may be triggered by physical (changes in the weather) and psychological factors (emotional stress).
Chronic kidney disease is world wide a major cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). 800.000 patients in Europe and in the US, respectively, require long-term treatment initially with peritoneal dialysis, followed by hemodialysis and kidney transplantation. Each ESRD patient on hemodialysis costs ≈€40000 to €80000 per year, has extremely poor quality of life and an average life expectancy of only 4 years. Kidney transplantation totally changes life for an ESRD patient who can then return to normal life, but this treatment is hampered by the low number of available kidney grafts.
Antimicrobial resistance is arguably the most significant challenge facing the EU health care system. The unnecessary use of antibiotics is a key driver in the development of antibiotic resistance. Cystic Fibrosis (CF) represents a unique disease model to study bacterial resistance and to explore therapeutic strategies for same, as chronic lung infection overlaps with acute lung exacerbations caused by a multitude of organisms that traditionally evolve various mechanisms of resistance.
