FiSPlat, a primary care tool for liver fibrosis screening

ASPY Prevención has started a collaboration with Hospital Clínic de Barcelona within the framework of the European project FiSPlat, financed by EIT Health. Within the project, ASPY Prevención will be part of the Post-Marketing clinical trial that is being carried out with a new non-invasive device that allows the diagnosis of liver fibrosis degree in order to prevent the progression of fibrosis towards liver cirrhosis.

The innovation project “FiSPlat”, supported by EIT Health, officially started its activities in January 2020 and and is a consortium project formed by: Hospital Clínic de Barcelona (HCB), Fundació per la Recerca Biomèdica Clínic (FCRB), Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris (APHP), Erasmus MC (EUMC), Echosens, Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Fundació Bosch i Gimpera (FBG), European Liver Patient Association (ELPA) and finally GENESIS Biomed, who leads the project.

Having the opportunity to non-invasively diagnose early stage liver cirrhosis, known as liver fibrosis, is what FibroScan Screening Platform (FiSPlat), the consortium project supported by EIT Health, the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, offers. EIT Health’s support has been essential since the project’s start, providing financial support and access to a wide network of professionals, helping to commercialise and position the technology worldwide.

Early detection and intervention of liver disease would be most effective in primary care settings, but currently there is a lack of tools to detect liver disease at an early stage, making it very difficult to prevent progression of fibrosis to cirrhosis.

FiSPlat is the result of a project supported by EIT Health, resulting in a tool that uses Transient Elastography technology (a combination of ultrasound and low frequency elastic waves) to non-invasively measure liver stiffness. Thanks to this tool, healthcare professionals can better identify liver diseases and make earlier treatment decisions.

FiSPlat is a consortium project composed of different partners. The project is led by GENESIS Biomed, a biomedical health sector consultancy specialised in providing consultancy services in the genesis and early stages of the life cycle of biomedical spin-offs and start-ups; ELPA, a European association of patients with liver diseases; Universitat de Barcelona in collaboration with the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation; Echosens, the technological partner of the project, and finally the clinical partners: APHP, Erasmus MC and Hospital Clínic de Barcelona in association with Fundació Clínic per la Recerca Biomèdica, who are responsible for carrying out the clinical study of the device for use in primary care. In this sense, ASPY Prevención has initiated a collaboration with Hospital Clínic with the help of GENESIS Biomed to participate in the recruitment of patients within the FiSPlat project.

ASPY Prevención, as an Occupational Risk Prevention Service that offers medical examination to its clients through its delegations, has joined the FiSPlat project as a cooperating partner company in a collaboration with the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. The aim of the collaboration is to offer one of its medical centres as a patient recruitment environment and thus participating in the inclusion of patients in the FiSPlat project.