HAYWARD, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), awarded Aradigm Corporation (ARDM) a Small Business Initiative Research (SBIR) grant to investigate the development and validation of tests for gastro-esophageal reflux with aspirations into the respiratory tract. The Principal Investigators and co-inventors of the new diagnostic tests are Professor Homer Boushey, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Dr. Igor Gonda, Aradigm Corporation. The grant of approximately $260,000 is funding laboratory work and a human clinical trial to be conducted at UCSF.
Aspiration of gastric contents into the respiratory tract causes significant morbidity and mortality and is accepted as the key initiating event for aspiration pneumonitis – a form of acute lung injury caused by the acidity of the gastric contents, and aspiration pneumonia – the consequence of the growth of pathogenic bacteria contained in the oropharynx aspirated into the tracheobronchial tree. When subclinical events of gastric aspiration occur, it is described as “silent aspiration” or “microaspiration.” Chronic, recurrent microaspirations have been implicated in the pathogenesis and worsening of many severe chronic pulmonary diseases of unknown origin, such idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, bronchiolitis obliterans after lung transplantation, pulmonary disease in conditions associated with esophageal dysfunction and delayed gastric emptying such as cystic fibrosis and scleroderma, and the very common conditions of community acquired pneumonia in the elderly, asthma and COPD.
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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/aradigm-awarded-nih-grant-investigate-110000078.html
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