LAB-Net’s Activities in ECRAID-Base’s POS-VAP

Over the five-year duration of the project, 20,000 patients are expected to be enrolled at 40 ICU sites in 15 European countries.

POS-VAP enrolled its first patient in August 2022 at the University Hospital of Limoges, and is on track to expand patient inclusion soon.

LAB-Net undertakes various tasks within the study. Through a transparent ongoing site selection process, 39 sites have been selected to date. General laboratory questions were included in the clinical questionnaire, with more specific ones sent to selected sites. Once there are at least five sites actively enrolling patients, laboratories from these sites will receive an invitation to participate in an External Quality Assessment (EQA) organised and conducted by LAB-Net. The results from both activities, the questionnaire and the EQA panel, will serve as a starting point for LAB-Net to prepare and conduct tailored trainings for the participating sites.

The laboratory network’s team took the lead in designing a general microbiology questionnaire to collect data about clinical samples collected within the different POS. This form has been integrated in the electronic Case Report Form (eCRF). In order to reduce the workload per POS, the general form can be adapted for each study. For POS-VAP, dedicated questions about sample types, tests, species identification and antimicrobial susceptibility results relevant for VAP have been added.

The activities of LAB-Net within POS-VAP mostly revolve around training and EQA. LAB-Net will continue training on appropriate sampling and screening methods for VAP diagnostics. It will plan and carry out EQA exercises as well. Identifying the most common respiratory pathogens and antimicrobial susceptibility testing had to be done for EQA purposes. LAB-Net focused particularly on detecting and reporting common antimicrobial resistance of clinical and epidemiological importance. So far, these different activities have been conducted at seven sites that previously participated in a study conducted under the COMBACTE project (HONEST-PREPS), also focused on VAP. The quality of the microbiological laboratories at these sites was confirmed through EQA, after which high-quality sites were selected for POS-VAP. Certificates, general and individual results were sent to participants at the end of June 2022.