MRFF grant to Associate Professor Elliot Long for sepsis trial

A Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI)-led project to overhaul sepsis care for children has been awarded a major Federal Government grant.

Associate Professor Elliot Long has received a $5 million National Critical Research Infrastructure Initiative (NCRI) grant by the Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) to test potential treatments for sepsis through an innovative, adaptive platform trial across Australia and New Zealand.

Sepsis is caused by the body’s extreme response to an infection where the immune system attacks healthy tissue in the body. The condition, impacting essential organ function, can lead to serious lung, kidney, liver and heart damage or death. In Australia, more than 100,000 people are hospitalised and 12,000 die from sepsis every year.

Associate Professor Elliot Long

Associate Professor Long said death rates in Australia from sepsis had not improved for more than two decades.

“There are enormous gaps in evidence in treating sepsis and some treatments can cause additional damage to patients instead of helping them. We urgently need safe and effective alternatives,” he said.

“To improve health outcomes, our adaptive, multidisciplinary platform trial will test several sepsis treatment options at once and make adjustments based on evolving evidence. This will help us to determine which treatments work best and answer many key questions at the same time.”

The project will leverage expertise from the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT), the MCRI-led Sepsis Epidemiology in Australian and New Zealand Children (SENTINEL) and the international SENTINEL study, to help generate high quality evidence and improve patient outcomes.

MCRI Professor Franz Babl, founding Chair of the PREDICT network, said the trial would also help boost awareness of sepsis symptoms and streamline treatments across Australia and globally.

“Importantly, along with determining the best, most effective treatment options for sepsis in children through this project, we are putting patients and families with lived experience at the centre of this national project,” he said.

“With approaches to sepsis currently varing quite widely, we hope this trial will ultimately by translated into improved national and international guidelines to ensure higher survival rates and improved quality of life, especially among vulnerable populations.”

The James Lind Alliance will also contribute to the trial alongside researchers from the University of Melbourne and The Royal Children’s Hospital.

Read more about MCRI’s Emergency Research projects.