21.09.2011Santeon grants Science Award

On Friday 16 September, the first Santeon Science Day was held in the Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven. Sabine Meijvis from the St. Antonius Hospital clinched the Santeon Science Award. She carried out research into the treatment of pneumonia patients. This research also instigates the first large-scale Santeon study, scheduled for this winter.

Multidisciplinary exchange
The Santeon hospitals set great store by science and innovation. To exchange research results, explore new research themes and encourage cooperation, the Santeon hospitals annually organise a Santeon Science Day. Earlier this year, all Santeon hospitals organised their own science days. Last Friday, the winners of these ‘local days’ competed for the Santeon Science Award by presenting their separate researches. This produced a varied multidisciplinary programme, addressing topics ranging from unobserved, undesirable medicine interactions among cancer patients, treatment of excessive saliva loss among patients with Parkinson’s disease, and Q fever in the Netherlands to the long-term efficiency of total hip prostheses.

Shorter stays
The award for the best research within Santeon hospitals went to Sabine Meijvis and colleagues from the St. Antonius Hospital. Every year, hundreds of thousands of Dutch people contract pneumonia, thirty thousand of which end up in hospital. Healthcare costs are high. These patients are hospitalised for over a week. Pneumonia is still the number three death cause. All this makes the search for a more effective medicine relevant. Meijvis’ research shows that pneumonia patients stay in hospital for a shorter period of time and experience a higher quality of life if they are treated with dexamethasone (corticosteroid) in the first four days of their stay; as much as one day shorter than the control group of patients receiving regular treatment. The research was published in June 2011 in the renowned medical journal The Lancet.

Santeon study
The Santeon hospitals will also jointly carry out clinical research, aimed at quality improvement, safety and/or efficiency. The first large-scale Santeon study will be launched this winter and is a continuation of the award-winning research. The aim is to confirm the effect of dexamethasone on shortening the hospitalisation of pneumonia patients. A confirmation of the results and further analysis are required before the use of dexamethasone can be made the guideline in the treatment of patients with pneumonia.