1. Scientific innovations:

          The institute has developed quite a few new therapeutic procedures:

  • New procedure:

  • The innovation of a New Treatment of Hemoptysis

This remains a completely new method of treating bloody expectoration. The beauty of

the method is that it is easy, economic, repeatable, can be performed in small set ups

without costly instruments and the expertise can be easily prepared. This can largely

substitute costly bronchial artery embolization and surgery. This method has the

potential to help millions of people in the developing world. (CHEST 2002; 121: 2066-

69), (Ind Jr Chest Dis Allied Sci 2007; 49: 137-42) and (Current Medical trend 2003; 7:

1384-88).

  • The innovation of a New Treatment of Emphysematous Bullae

This is an innovative method where big air-pockets in lungs can be easily decompressed and a lot of relief can be offered to many sufferers of emphysema. This procedure has prospect of further improvement and extension of the use / similar other innovations. (European Respiratory Journal 2007; 29: 1003-1006).

  • The innovation of a New Treatment of Bronchopleural Fistula

This is a novel method of treating a persisting hole in the lung leads to continuous expulsion of air from the lungs to its covering sac, the pleural space. This condition is really a pathetic one especially in patients with underlying lung disease as COPD. The treatment becomes a challenge especially if the leak is at the periphery (alveolo-pleural fistula). There are not many good methods to treat them and the method developed by us is, to our opinion, perhaps the best been discovered so far.

(Ind Jr Chest Dis Allied Sci 2008; 50: 203-208).

    • Opening of a new horizon of the therapy for IPF (idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis).

  • The innovation of a new therapeutic prospect of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF),

with the novel repurpose use of a commonly used drug doxycycline

IPF (idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis) is a condition of progressing scarring of the lungs with poor survival prospect. The available treatment for IPF is not that effective and is often very costly and many patients end up in lung transplantation. Our innovation has a significance of adding benefit to existing treatment. We have shown that the agent is well tolerated on long term and that its use is likely beneficial across the causes of fibrotic DPLDs (diffuse parenchymal lung diseases). It needs a detailed study to forward a stronger evidence; unfortunately, we could not proceed much for logistic constraints. The institute is sincerely trying to mobilize resources to do a proper double-blind placebo-controlled trial.

(Ind Jr Chest Dis Allied Sci 2007; 49:180, Lung India 2009; 26: 81-85, and Lung India 2011; 28(3):174-179)

  • Unveiling new aspect of COPD – Left heart associations.

  • Left Ventricular Diastolic Dysfunction in COPD without any risk factor may have association with Myocardial Ischemia.

The revelations of this work have a far stretched impact since it clarifies that COPD-LVDD (left ventricular diastolic dysfunction) association is not co-incidental but a marker of ongoing ischemia in myocardium. The outcome of the information may help thousands and millions of COPD patients to live possibly a longer life with better-quality.

(European Respiratory congress at Vienna from 12th to 17th of September, 2009 oral presentation (no.2605). (CHEST 2005; 128: 4, 263S.), and (COPD journal 2012:9:1-5)

We have also proved that the treatment of the condition (LVDD) can actually improve the health status of COPD patients. (Letter to editor. Lung India, 2012; 29: 392).

    • Opening new horizons of treatment of asthma and COPD:

  • Both these two conditions are rampant all over the globe and though different, both the conditions have a common feature of gradual stiffening and thickening of the airway wall. This is called remodeling and it leads to airflow limitation that is not well reversible. So far, there has been no treatment of remodeling. The institute claims to have shown an innovative way (breakthrough) to address airway remodeling pharmacologically. This may change the face of treatment of these two common and debilitating diseases.

(J Asthma and Allergy, 2012;5:33-7) and (Lung India, 2014:31. 306 – 7.), (accepted manuscript under technical checking in IJMR (manuscript ID- IJMR_1254_18)

  • Remodeling of different lung pathologies/ structural changes:

  • Disease induced structural changes can cause physiological jeopardy and suffering. They can often create confusion with even malignancy morphologically. We consider it as a kind of remodeling of the lung parenchyma as a response to insult (physical, chemical, or biological). The re-remodeling of these lung pathologies may of extreme help to a suffering patient. This is likely possible and we have proved the concept on clinical documentation. This means that even architectural changes in lung and pleura can be reverted to normal with medication. This type of reparative/ regenerative medical effort was not thought of so far. Thus, our observation and research can open up a new horizon in the treatment of pulmonary diseases.

(Innovative Journal of Medical and Health Science, 2014; 4: 3, 99 – 105.) and (Lung India 2015; 32:40-3).

    • Making a CDSS (Clinical Decision Support System) for care of asthma.

  • Development of a clinical decision support system software on asthma named ACCESS: in collaboration with SMST, IIT Kharagpur

This simple clinical decision support system will help diagnosis, guidance to management and self-monitoring of the diseases to, avert exacerbations. This will help to bridge the huge gap between the guideline recommendations and practice behavior. This will surely help people to live better and save a lot of man power and healthcare related expenses.

(Copyright no. L-30805/2008 dated 26.06.08, Diary no 2916/2008 – CO/L, Date of application: 16/05/08).

    • Making a simple instrument to analyze lung sound to diagnose different diseases.

The institute has been engaged in a collaborative research to find out the digital signature of lung sound (both normal and abnormal) to diagnose different lung diseases non invasive way. Despite logistic constraints, the institute has sponsored the work and we have been able to make it possible to identify DPLD patients successfully on digital signature of lung sounds from normal people.

(The Scientific World Journal,2014:10.1155). (Springer Plus, 2013: 2:512). 2013 Indian Conference on Medical Informatics and Telemedicine (ICMIT) page-43-47. (IEEE Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Intelligent Human Computer Interaction, Kharagpur, India, December 27-29, 2012). (Journal of Medical Engineering & Technology, 2011, 1-10). Respirology 2015; 20 : 633-639.

  • Feasible and cost-effective rehabilitation program for the rural COPD patients:

COPD rehabilitation is a recognized, non-pharmacological intervention that makes a lot of positive impact (quality of life, reduced symptoms, better functional capacity, less hospitalization etc.). The formal COPD-rehabilitation is a costly and effort intensive process which is hardly available outside a few tertiary care centers in the country. We have made a protocol with inclusion of rural practitioners (quacks) in the process of monitoring and proved that the single point intensive education and training followed by local monitoring and encouragement by rural volunteers can improve the quality of life and this effect can be long lasting (>one year). (International Journal of COPD 2018:13 3313–3319)

  • Making a way out to treat COPD-PH:

COPD is a problem of epidemic dimension in India and a global menace of increasing incidence. PH (pulmonary hypertension) is a common complication of COPD that affects the quality of life and compromises survival prospect. There is no guideline to treat PH developed in COPD patients (COPD-PH) although there are several medications to treat PH. We, at the institute, innovated a way to treat COPD on simple cost-effective evaluation. It is also hemodynamically endorsed.

(J Pulm Respir Med 8: 469. doi: 10.4172/2161-105X.1000469 and accepted for publication in Journal of Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine, manuscript ID- jprm-19-3756)

  • Innovating a regression equation for diagnosis of DPLD from PFT:

DPLD (diffuse parenchymal lung disease) is a condition of drying up of the lungs. The lungs get scarred and the patient suffers from progressive shortness of breath. The diagnosis of the condition is done by HRCT (high resolution computerized tomography) chest of the lungs. We have observed a new change in a common investigation as spirometry and evolved a regression equation to diagnose DPLD with high predictive power.

(Presentred in APSR (A0194)- {Respirology 2018; 23 (Suppl.2), 78-79}

  • Detecting HRCT changes in HP from avian antigen and determining a sign to predict

increased risk of PH in them:

This is simple observation on HRCT chest of the patients of chronic HP (hypersensitivity pneumonitis). We have seen a change (a sign) as pleural based thickenings that corelate well with the presence of pulmonary hypertension in them. The observation needs further validation.

(Lung India 2018; 35: 215-9)

  • Determination of AMA responsiveness of airway diseases:

There are two classes of bronchodilators for airway diseases as asthma and COPD. We can do salbutamol bronchodilator test with a particular class to assess the treatment responsiveness but cannot do so for the other class (AMA, antimuscarinic agents) in a clinic setting. We have evolved a protocol with a short-onset but long acting AMA glycopyrronium that dictates the AMA sensitivity in a patient of airway disease. This will help immensely to phenotype airway diseases and decide customized treatment. {European Respiratory Journal 54(suppl 63) PA2480;DOI:10.1183/13993003}, {submitted to JACP (manuscript ID: JACP_34_20)}

  • Innovation of a new exercise test to substitute 6MWT:

Exercise test is an integral part of evaluation of the patients with different cardiopulmonary diseases. One such test, 6MWT (6 minutes walk test), is well established in clinical practice and research. However, it is not popular for some inherent logistic issues related to the performance of the test. So, we have innovated a substitute of 6MWT which is claimed to be a more cardiopulmonary stress specific and is easy to perform (possible even in the consultation room itself). The test is named 2CT (2 chair test) and is accepted for publication.

{(on the process of publication in BMJ open respiratory research journal (manuscript id: bmjresp-2019-000447)}

  • Revelation of new mechanism of COPD in smokers and identification of smokers at risk for COPD:

This is a joint work with Late Professor Indu Bhusan Chatterjee of the Department of Biotechnology, University of Calcutta. Primarily, it is Prof. Chatterjee’s innovation of a chemical substance (semi-benzoquinone) in cigarette smoke that gets converted to parabenzoquinone (pBQ). Dr Chatterjee found that the parabenzoquinone is neutralized by its antibody. It is seen that those who develop COPD has depleted amount of anti-pBQ antibody the reason of which is not known yet. The detection of inadequate level of anti-pBQ antibody possibly leads to a weakness in protection of the lung injury from pBQ. We took part in the work of identifying the antibody in COPD subjects. The research has significant applied importance since it can identify the susceptible smokers who will develop COPD on smoking. This can help us prevent COPD.

(International Journal of COPD 2017:12 1–10)

  • Patents applied for: We have several patent applications to our credit