University of Southern Denmark

Overview:
The University of Southern Denmark welcomed the first students onto the campus in Odense in September 1966, and things have been developing by leaps and bounds ever since. SDU now have five faculties with more than 32,000 students, almost 20% of whom are from abroad, and more than 4,000 employees distributed across our main campus in Odense and regional campuses in Slagelse, Kolding, Esbjerg and Sønderborg.
SDU conducts world-class research and are one of the top fifty young universities in the world. Every day more than 2,000 researchers and 32,000 students build on the university’s reputation as a centre of academic excellence.
Research:
The University of Southern Denmark consists of five faculties:
<ul>
<li>Faculty of Engineering</li>
<li>Faculty of Health Sciences</li>
<li>Faculty of Science</li>
<li>Faculty of Business and Social Sciences</li>
<li>Faculty of Humanities</li>
</ul>
Every faculty consists of several departments, where the departments have a noticeable academic and economic independence and responsibility. Together departments and centres cover a wide range of research fields and educational opportunities.
Industry Partnerships:
SDU works purposefully to create dialogue between the university’s researchers and the surrounding society. To promote and make communication and knowledge exchange visible, faculties cooperate with various external parties. These activities are organised in centres. The centres serve to promote special purposes in research, education or knowledge exchange.
SDU RIO (SDU Research &amp; Innovation Organisation) supports collaboration between research, education, the business community and the public sector.

<h1 id="background">Background</h1>
Detecting a possible air leak from the lung in a standard Chest Drainage Unit (CDU) is often misinterpreted by healthcare professionals (nurses and doctors).
Too late removal of a chest tube will lengthen in hospital stay for the patient by days.
Too early removal of the chest tube results in collapse of the lung and replacement of the chest tube which can be an unpleasant and painful experience for the patient, and is expensive for the health care system/health insurances.
Estimated price per day for in hospital stay is €400 while addition of an Eckardt Leakage Detector - ELD® to a conventional CDU is €10-15.
<h1 id="technology-overview">Technology Overview</h1>
SDU offer a simple and cost-effective solution to determine the right time for removal of the chest tube, changing the decision from a subjective to an objective assessment. This increases patient safety and wellbeing and minimizes hospitalization of patients.
This invention adds a simple CO2 detector to the water seal of a CDU and air leakage is seen as a change of color from blue to green (<img src="https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/assets.in-part.com/figures/Qfp1toCpTZC7pfQ0uI0k_eld1.PNG" alt="Figure 1" />). The color change will follow the CO2 concentration and following enable the healthcare professional to see if there is any air leakage and the severity of the air leakage.
<h3 id="-stage-of-development-">Stage of Development</h3>
A controlled animal (5 pigs) study has shown the technology performs as predicted.
A pilot study with patients with different disease were investigated with the new technology
Finally in collaboration with a chest drain manufacturer a chest drainage unit has been developed and number of patients have been tested in a controlled setup with excellent results. Published: <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32819024/">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32819024/</a>