Administrative Data

Project reference: DPI2004-07167-C02-01
Title: Development of a glycemic prediction system and insulin dosing aid for patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus – INSULAID
Participanting centers: Coordinated project
Subproject 1: Universitat Politècnica de València (coordinador); Subproject 2: Universitat de Girona
Principal Investigator: Jorge Bondia (coordinator); Josep Vehí
Funded by: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia
Duration: 13/12/2004-13/12/2007
Funding awarded: Subproject 1: €92,000.00; Subproject 2: €97,750.00

Project Summary

Type 1 diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease with a significant individual and social impact that affects a significant number of people. It causes significant complications in target organs (eyes, kidneys, heart, etc.) that can lead to serious illnesses, resulting in severe disabilities (blindness, kidney failure, acute myocardial infarction, etc.), as well as a significant reduction in life expectancy. These factors are directly related to blood glucose levels. Therefore, controlling blood glucose levels within normal limits is the main objective of treatment for type 1 diabetes mellitus.

The development of predictive models for glycemia will allow for improved metabolic control and, therefore, reduce the complications associated with this disease. Cobelli’s glucose metabolism model has already been widely validated in clinical trials. This model is nonlinear and has more than 30 parameters to identify. This project proposes the parametric identification of this model for individual patients and the development of a training and simulation system so that patients can reliably predict the evolution of their glycemia based on the actions they will perform. Based on this system, an insulin dosing aid is also proposed. These two systems aim to keep patients within the normoglycemic range for a longer period of time, thereby increasing their quality of life and life expectancy. To achieve this, constraint-solving techniques on continuous domains will be used, which have undergone significant advances thanks, above all, to the contribution of methods based on interval analysis and the combination of various programming and optimization techniques.

Researchers

Hospital Josep Trueta de Girona

• Wifredo Ricart
• José Manuel Fernández Real