It aims to create clinical monitoring networks that they can effectively coping with severe infections and sepsis – which in Italy alone cause tens of thousands of deaths every year – the Sis-Net project (Severe Infections and Sepsis clinical Network for identification of clinical and diagnostic markers, immunological monitoring and ‘Target and tailored’ therapies for adults, children and patients admitted to intensive care units) which was officially launchedwith the kick-off meeting, in the premises of the Rectorate of the University of Palermo. The Sicilian university is in fact the leader of the project which, financed by the funds provided by the cascade call for proposals Pnrr issued by theHigher Institute of Health (Iss), involves 16 other public and private partners at national level between universities, IRCCS, companies, accredited private bodies and scientific societies such as that of anesthesia and resuscitation (Siaarti).
In detailas stated in a note, Sis-Net provides for the creation of a national clinical-diagnostic network – composed of intensive care units for adults and newborns, infectious disease and pediatric departments, microbiology and immunology laboratories – capable of collecting data in a timely and coordinated manner at a national level, as well as the design of multicenter clinical studies for diagnostic-prognostic evaluations. “With the Sis-Net project, which extends and integrates the objectives of the Research Node coordinated by ISS – says Anna Teresa Palamara, director of the Infectious Diseases department of ISS – we intend to focus on the excellence of the country to build a reality of researchers and clinicians who can constitute a stable collaborative infrastructure that also looks beyond the end of the project”.
Sis-Net is part of Spoke 4 of the Extended Partnership Pnrr Inf-Act, project that, among the various research topics, aims to structure clinical networks for the identification and monitoring of emerging infections at a national level. “This project, funded with approximately 5 million euros distributed across 17 institutions throughout the country – explains Federico Forneris, president of the Inf-Act Foundation – will allow us to achieve and extend this objective to facilitate the standardization and sharing of clinical data at a national level between intensive care units, including pediatric and neonatal ones, and hospital departments involved in the evaluation, diagnosis and study of infectious diseases”.
The project will be able to guarantee “the timely and widespread collection of clinical and epidemiological data and the clustering of subsets of patients based on their characteristics, laying the foundations for therapeutic improvements – underlines Massimo Midiri, rector of the University of Palermo – UniPa is proud of its researchers and its administrative managers who are supporting and will support a research project of public utility”. Following this, in his speech, Andrea Pace, vice-rector for Research, underlined the effort made by UniPa and the commitment shown by Maria Grazia Furnari, general director of the Aou Policlinico of Palermo, to which the researchers involved in the project belong, and the important role of a hospital-university company in fully representing the place where research and good healthcare grow and develop. The director of the Department of Precision Medicine in the Medical, Surgical and Critical Area of the University of Palermo, Giorgio Stassi, instead highlighted the importance of investments in the city-university system that have allowed Palermo to be the leader of such an important project and reiterated the willingness of the Aou Policlinico of Palermo to take all the necessary steps to complete the project.
“The public health objective that they have assigned to us – reiterates Antonino Giarratano, Department of Precision Medicine in the Medical, Surgical and Critical Area and scientific referent of the Sis-Net project – is very important and the lack of a system of clinical networks has been dramatic in the recent Covid-19 era. We have limited time, but we are sure that we will bring significant results thanks to a research project that constitutes an adaptation of the systems for monitoring and contrasting infections to European contexts. The national networks, through the sharing of resources – he specifies – will promote the exchange of information with the aim of preventing severe infections and sepsis both from community pathogens and those acquired in hospital. This is a real health emergency that, in Italy alone, affects around 250 thousand people every year, with unfortunately fatal outcomes in 25% of cases (60 thousand deaths per year). Today is an important day that sees, among other things, the Cnec-Iss issue the first Italian guidelines on sepsis and septic shock”.
The Sis-Net research project has officially begun its work, and the 50 researchers involved and the over 150 who will participate in the network expect, within the next 18 months, to provide a tangible result that will allow the ISS and the National Health Service to open a new era in the control of severe infections and sepsis in adults and children.
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