Mauna Kea Technologies Supports Clinical Research Evaluating the Use of Cellvizio® on COVID-19 Patients with Respiratory Insufficiency

Evaluating the Role of Cellvizio to Measure Acute and Long-Term Pulmonary Impairment 

Mauna Kea Technologies is supporting research to determine if Cellvizio can be effective in severe acute and/or long COVID-19 patients suffering from lingering respiratory complications. Mauna Kea Technologies is offering in-kind funding to researchers evaluating what role Cellvizio may play in the care management of COVID-19 patients, by assessing lung fibrosis and microvascularization changes, and alveolar and capillary morphology damages; symptoms observed in severe acute and/or long COVID-19 patients with mild to severe respiratory infections. Interested clinical teams can submit their projects to this website: www.landing.maunakeatech.com/covid19. 

“With 75% of severe COVID-19 patients suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and millions of post-COVID-19 patients with mild versions of the disease continuing to experience symptoms after their initial recovery1, there is growing evidence that a large portion of these patients2 will confront long-term medical complications from their infections, including respiratory, circulatory and neurological symptoms3,” said Robert L. Gershon, Chief Executive Officer of Mauna Kea Technologies. “Current diagnostic tools and clinical parameters provide limited value in assessing the actual diseases process at an alveolar level in active and post recovery phases of COVID-19. Cellvizio has proven capability to assess lung tissue damages at the cellular level which are correlated with respiratory insufficiencies and we are eager to find ways to support the COVID community and the physicians that are treating both severe active and long COVID patients with lingering symptoms.” 

Jouke T. Annema, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Pulmonary Endoscopy, Amsterdam University Medical Center (A UMC), has received IRB authorization to launch a pilot clinical study using pCLE for the evaluation of COVID-19 patients with respiratory insufficiency in the ICU (Netherlands Trial Registry under NL9281). This study is being funded by Mauna Kea Technologies. Professor Annema and his team previously demonstrated that pCLE imaging of patients suffering from non-COVID-19 ARDS is safe and results in high quality alveolar imaging showing distinct patterns4 (Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT04479007). They concluded that pCLE imaging has added value to chest CT and has the potential to distinguish between important causes of respiratory failure in critically ill patients in the ICU. “pCLE features of COVID-19 ARDS are unknown and there is an urgent need in acquiring high detail imaging of the alveolar compartment,” said Professor Annema, adding that “bronchoscopic pCLE imaging in ICU settings might improve COVID-19 ARDS diagnosis/etiology and potentially have an impact on treatment.” 

 In a separate study, Olesya V. Danilevskaya, M.D., Ph.D., at the Federal Research Clinical Center of Federal Medical & Biological Agency, in Moscow Russia, is evaluating pCLE in critically iII COVID-19 patients (Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT04451889). Dr. Danilevskaya noted that “the 15 COVID-19 patients with ARDS included in this study were successfully and safely imaged in the ICU with pCLE during bronchoscopy,” she added that “pCLE images will now be correlated to chest CT and bronchoalveolar lavage analysis findings.”