Diagnostics

Every year there are an estimated 230,000 childhood deaths from TB. There is an urgent need for novel tests for TB diagnosis in children under 15 years. The Rapid Research in Diagnostics Development for TB Network (R2D2 Kids) and the Assessing Diagnostics at Point-of-care for Tuberculosis in children (ADAPT for Kids) studies seek to reduce the burden of TB worldwide by evaluating faster, simpler, and less expensive TB triage and diagnostic tests for use in children.

Staging pancreatic cancer (PC) presents a clinical challenge. Triphasic whole body CT is the primary imaging method in diagnosing, staging and during follow up. Conventional PET/CT with 18F-labelled fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) has its limitations and therefore has a secondary role in imaging pancreatic cancer patients. These conventional imaging methods are good in detecting primary tumors and distant metastasis but poor in detecting local lymph node metastasis. A new PET tracer, fibroblast activation protein inhibitor (FAPI), targets FAP, a protein overexpressed in cancer-associated fibroblasts. It presents a potential new PET imagining tool. The objective of this prospective diagnostic study is to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of 18F-FAPI-74 PET/CT in patients with PC. The aim is to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of 18F-FAPI-74 in detection of local lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis in patient level in patients with PC in primary staging and when suspected recurrence. 100 patients with PC are enrolled on whom PET/CT studies are performed with the novel 18F-FAPI-74 tracer. The data will be collected between 2024-2026.

In the case of large emergency serosurveys, innovation in the sampling techniques is an often neglected, but relevant aspect to facilitate the enrolment of subjects in both adult and paediatric populations. Further, neutralization assays are the first line of response immediately after the emergence of a novel virus in the human population. This study aims at developing at IZSVe 384-format high-throughput neutralization assays for emerging and re-emerging respiratory viruses with pandemic potential to increase the preparedness capacity at both regional and national levels. This diagnostic platform will include the validation of Mitra VAMS devices for gathering blood samples for the diagnostic procedure. The platform will be tested and validated using adult subject-matched serum samples collected by venipuncture and finger-prick with volumetric tip microsampling devices (Mitra VAMS). This comparison will focus on the titration of antibodies against endemic viruses like influenza type A (i.e., seasonal influenza strains, like pdmH1N1 or H3N2) and SARS-CoV-2. The same serological assay will be developed to titrate neutralizing antibodies against emerging pathogens like avian influenza viruses of the H3 and H5 subtypes, Zika virus, and MERS-CoV.