In its early development, the respiratory system of newborns and infants is exceptionally vulnerable to diseases. In Quebec only, it is estimated that more than 300,000 children suffer from asthma, the most common childhood chronic disease. Most of these respiratory diseases are often preventable through early and accurate diagnosis. However, current lung function tests in infants are considerable long, invasive, and frequently involve sedation usually contraindicated in newborns.
THORASYS has developed a new effortless and non-invasive product aimed specifically at the 0–2 years age group, called the tremoflo N-100, a modified version of the current tremoflo C-100 AOS Oscillometry System, that includes an optimized flow head that improves the patient’s comfort and measurements accuracy.
Preliminary results using mechanical loads with typical neonate’s impedance values, shows comparable results to the measurements obtained with the wavetube (non-commercial established gold standard technique for infants). Therefore, the purpose of this project is to conduct a clinical study in a group of 30 infants from 0 to 2 years of age, to validate that the results obtained with the tremoflo N-100 are comparable to those produced by the wavetube. Such validation would allow for further development towards a device that could be routinely employed in the assessment and care of infants, thus, potentially reducing the mortality rate, as well as, the costs associated with these diseases.