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Grant recipient

Anders Perner

IMPROVE-ICU - improving intensive care through clinical trials
Grant amount: DKK 9,707,750

The sickest patients in hospitals are cared for in the intensive care unit (ICU). In the ICU, most patients are treated with advanced life-support. Despite this, many patients die, and the survivors and relatives struggle with reduced quality of life for years. It is therefore a paradox, that many of the treatments we give to ICU patients, have not been tested in such patients. We give these treatments based on tradition and tests in less sick patients. Worryingly, we recently found that some treatments harmed the ICU patients. Therefore, we conduct clinical trials to directly improve the treatment of ICU patients. As a result, more patients survive and we give patients less medicine and less blood and the overall cost has been reduced. With the IMPROVE-ICU program, we will further improve the clinical trials we conduct. This will improve the treatment of blood poisoning, unstable heart rhythm, fluid and blood loss and the way we use blood sampling to the benefit of patients, relatives and society.

Anders Perner
MD, PhD and Professor, Department of Intensive Care
Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen