Validating a neonatal lung monitor - Lund Laser Center and GPX Medical

GPX Medical is a Swedish medical diagnostics company producing lung monitoring equipment for premature babies. GPX Medical regularly collaborates with Lund university.

Lung phantoms resulting from the collaboration

Monitoring the lung activities of pre-term babies helps to identify and treat complications early, before they may lead to disabilities. To facilitate this, GPX Medical was developing technology for measuring lung volumes and oxygen gas concentration in lungs of prematurely born babies Since such a device falls under medical device regulations, the technology needs validation throughout the development process, which requires testing in lung-like systems (phantoms).

The research helped the company to obtain blueprints for realistic lung models which it can now 3D print in-house. They then used the phantoms to advance the development of their lung monitoring product and were essential for the validation processes required by the medical devices regulations.

The work also resulted in scientific publication [J Biophotonics 12, 8 (2019)].

The partners involved in the development were the Lund University groups: Combustion Physics, Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care, Atomic Physics and the Lund Laser Center (LLC)