Abstract
Bronchiectasis is a disease of renewed interest in light of an increase in prevalence and increasing burden on international healthcare systems. There are no licensed therapies, and large gaps in knowledge in terms of epidemiology, pathophysiology and therapy. The European Multicentre Bronchiectasis Audit and Research Collaboration (EMBARC) is a European Respiratory Society (ERS) Clinical Research Collaboration, funded by ERS to promote high-quality research in bronchiectasis. The objective of this consensus statement was to define research priorities in bronchiectasis. From 2014 to 2015, EMBARC used a modified Delphi process among European bronchiectasis experts to reach a consensus on 55 key research priorities in this field. During the same period, the European Lung Foundation collected 711 questionnaires from adult patients with bronchiectasis and their carers from 22 European countries reporting important research priorities from their perspective. This consensus statement reports recommendations for bronchiectasis research after integrating both physicians and patients priorities, as well as those uniquely identified by the two groups. Priorities identified in this consensus statement provide the clearest possible roadmap towards improving our understanding of the disease and the quality of care for patients with bronchiectasis.
Abstract
EMBARC consensus statement identifies research priorities in bronchiectasis as determined by physicians and patients http://ow.ly/lmcj300a2iS
Footnotes
This Task Force document was endorsed by the ERS Science Council and ERS Executive Committee in April 2016.
This article has supplementary material available from erj.ersjournals.com
Support statement: EMBARC is funded by the Inhaled Antibiotics in Bronchiectasis and Cystic Fibrosis consortium, a project of the European Union Innovative Medicines Initiative (number 115721), and by the European Respiratory Society as Clinical Research Collaboration. James D. Chalmers acknowledges fellowship support from the Wellcome Trust. Funding information for this article has been deposited with the Open Funder Registry.
Conflict of interest: S. Masefield and P. Powell are employees of the European Lung Foundation. Further disclosures can be found alongside this article at erj.ersjournals.com
- Received November 12, 2015.
- Accepted March 2, 2016.
- Copyright ©ERS 2016