Primary Pneumothorax Fluorescein-Enhanced Thoracoscopy (PREFECT)
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Primary Pneumothorax Fluorescein-Enhanced Thoracoscopy (PREFECT)
IRAS ID
263552
Contact name
Robert Hallifax
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Clinical Trials and Research Governance,
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 9 months, 29 days
Research summary
Pneumothorax is air in the chest causing the lung to collapse. This can occur spontaneously without any other injury to the chest. Primary spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP) refers typically to young patients without known lung disease, who were traditionally thought to have normal lung. This view is now being challenged, but the true reason for their lung to leak air (and hence collapse) is not known.
This study will use a new technique to show up abnormal areas in the lung by asking patients to inhale a drug called fluorescein. Fluorescein glows bright green under ultraviolet (UV) light. Therefore, when a patient has surgery to prevent another collapsed lung, we can use UV light to show where the fluorescein is coming abnormally close to the lung surface.
We think these areas are the source of the air leak and will therefore have a different structure with some chemicals being over- (or under-) produced. The lung structure (histology) will be looked at under the microscope and the chemicals being produced (mRNA) will be analysed. Importantly, we will be comparing areas that look normal and abnormal in the same patient and also with other patients who have not had a pneumothorax (control group).
This is the first time that this study has been undertaken, so we will be testing our technique on up to 8 patients at the beginning to make sure we are achieving good quality samples, before we perform the full histology and mRNA testing on another 20 patients.
REC name
East of England - Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/EE/0235
Date of REC Opinion
17 Sep 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion