Browse through all publications from the Institute of Global Health Innovation, which our Patient Safety Research Collaboration is part of. This feed includes reports and research papers from our Centre.
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Journal articleReka H, van Kessel R, Mossialos E, et al., 2026,
Private health insurance in Gulf Cooperation Council countries: A scoping review
, Health Policy Open, Vol: 10Private Health Insurance (PHI) in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries has experienced rapid growth over the past two decades, driven by demographic and economic changes. Although various analyses at the country level have been reported, no study has reviewed PHI systems in the GCC through a methodological approach. We provide a conceptual framework to review, describe and document the development of PHI in the GCC, based on literature from the scoping review. As of December 2023, all GCC countries have laws in place or have promulgated laws establishing mandatory PHI schemes. Most of these schemes are designed for expatriate populations residing in these countries, but there is a trend to extend them to nationals working in the private sector. The health system context plays a role in how PHI emerged and is designed in terms of role, eligibility, and coverage. PHI markets in the region are concentrated and dominated by local companies with performance levels that could be further improved. These markets are maturing and subject to more robust technical and prudential regulations as governments seek to enhance competition. Governments in the region must ensure the sustainable growth of these schemes and a more strategic alignment with health system objectives. Lessons learned from more mature markets are critical for future developments.
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Journal articleKoutsoftidis S, Petkos K, Zafeiropoulos G, et al., 2026,
A compact stimulator and recorder for atrial fibrillation ablation surgery: Realization and clinical evaluation
, MEASUREMENT, Vol: 257, ISSN: 0263-2241 -
Conference paperRoddan A, Czempiel T, Xu C, et al., 2026,
SAMSA: Segment anything model enhanced with spectral angles for hyperspectral interactive medical image segmentation
, MICCAI 2025, Publisher: Springer, Pages: 478-488, ISSN: 0302-9743Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) provides rich spectral information for medical imaging, yet encounters significant challenges due to data limitations and hardware variations. We introduce SAMSA, a novel interactive segmentation framework that combines an RGB foundation model with spectral analysis. SAMSA efficiently utilizes user clicks to guide both RGB segmentation and spectral similarity computations. The method addresses key limitations in HSI segmentation through a unique spectral feature fusion strategy that operates independently of spectral band count and resolution. Performance evaluation on publicly available datasets has shown 81.0% 1-click and 93.4% 5-click DICE on a neurosurgical and 81.1% 1-click and 89.2% 5-click DICE on an intraoperative porcine hyperspectral dataset. Experimental results demonstrate SAMSA’s effectiveness in few-shot and zero-shot learning scenarios and using minimal training examples. Our approach enables seamless integration of datasets with different spectral characteristics, providing a flexible framework for hyperspectral medical image analysis.
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Conference paperDaly C, Marconi E, Riva M, et al., 2026,
Towards markerless intraoperative tracking of deformable spine tissue
, MICCAI 2025, Publisher: Springer, Pages: 627-637, ISSN: 0302-9743Consumer-grade RGB-D imaging for intraoperative orthopedic tissue tracking is a promising method with high translational potential. Unlike bone-mounted tracking devices, markerless tracking can reduce operating time and complexity. However, its use has been limited to cadaveric studies. This paper introduces the first real-world clinical RGB-D dataset for spine surgery and develops SpineAlign, a system for capturing deformation between preoperative and intraoperative spine states. We also present an intraoperative segmentation network trained on this data and introduce CorrespondNet, a multi-task framework for predicting key regions for registration in both intraoperative and preoperative scenes.
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Journal articleByrne JP, Hinton EC, Humayun AM, et al., 2026,
A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Pilot Trial With Open-Label Extension of Sirona, a Hydrogel for Weight Loss.
, Obesity (Silver Spring), Vol: 34, Pages: 88-100OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the safety, tolerability, and preliminary efficacy of Sirona, a novel gastro-retentive, dual-network polymer for weight management. METHODS: This pilot trial comprised a randomized, parallel-group, double-blind, placebo-controlled (3:1 ratio), 12-week period, with a 12-week open-label extension (OLE), in participants with BMI of 30-40 kg/m2. Primary endpoints were feasibility, tolerability, and safety; secondary endpoints included weight loss and dietary intake, tested using Hedge's g [95% CI] as a measure of effect size. RESULTS: Participants received Sirona (n = 29/38) or Placebo (n = 9/38) (mean [SD] age = 40.9 [8.4]; weight = 101.7 [12.9] kg; BMI = 35.6 [3.0]; 29/38 female and 23/38 White British). Dosing was well tolerated (RCT Sirona: 95.2 [11.0]%; RCT Placebo: 97.8 [3.5]%; RCT + OLE Sirona: 93.1 [13.0]%). No serious adverse events occurred. Of the adverse events, nausea was most prominent (74.8%), mostly graded mild (79.3%) and requiring no intervention (84.4%). Percentage total body weight loss was greater for Sirona compared to Placebo after 12 weeks (3.9 [3.0]% versus 1.0 [2.1]%, g = 0.96 [-1.81, -0.10]). Weight loss continued in the OLE (change from baseline = 4.4 [3.8]%). Dietary intake reduced from baseline after 12 weeks of treatment (-382.5 [519.3] kcal; Placebo = 93.5 [670.3] kcal, g = -0.8 [-1.7, 0.0]) and after 24 weeks (-338.2 [486.7] kcal, g = 0.7 [0.2, 1.1]). CONCLUSIONS: Sirona was well tolerated, with mild, primarily gastrointestinal side effects. Reduced weight and dietary intake suggest Sirona is suitable as a nonpharmacological treatment for weight management. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN14083641 (https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN14083641).
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Journal articleAshrafian H, Harling L, 2025,
Earliest depiction of port wine stains, eye signs and ear deformity in the portrait of Edward Grimston (c. 1399-1478) by Petrus Christus.
, J Neurol, Vol: 273 -
Journal articleXu C, Roddan A, Kakaletri I, et al., 2025,
Interpretable classification of endomicroscopic brain data via saliency consistent contrastive learning.
, Med Image Anal, Vol: 109In neurosurgery, accurate brain tissue characterization via probe-based Confocal Laser Endomicroscopy (pCLE) has become popular for guiding surgical decisions and ensuring safe tumour resections. In order to enable surgeons to trust a tissue classification model, interpretability of the result is required. However, state-of-the-art (SOTA) deep learning models for pCLE data classification exhibit limited interpretability. This paper introduces a novel image classification framework for interpretable brain tissue characterisation using pCLE data. Firstly, instead of the commonly employed cross-entropy based classification loss, we propose Label Contrastive Learning (LCL) loss to learn intra-category similarities and inter-category contrasts. We are then able to generate highly representative data embeddings, which not only improve classification performance but also distinguish characteristics from different tissue classes. Secondly, we design a Saliency Consistency (SC) module to enable the trained model to generate clinically relevant saliency maps of the input data. To further refine the saliency maps, a novel Top-K Maximum and Minimum Pooling (TK-MMP) layer is introduced to our SC module, to increase the contrast of saliency values between non-clinically relevant and clinically relevant areas. For the first time, the Exponential Moving Average (EMA) is used in a novel fashion to update global embeddings of the different tissue categories rather than the weights of the model. In addition, we propose a Global Embedding Inference (GEI) layer to replace learnable classification layers to achieve more robust classification by estimating the cosine similarity between the input data embeddings and global embeddings. Performance evaluation on ex-vivo and in-vivo pCLE brain data verifies that our proposed approach outperforms SOTA classification models in terms of accuracy, robustness and interpretability. Our source codes are released at: https://github.com/XC9292/LCL-SC.
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Conference paperZhu Z, Ezzat A, Roddan A, et al., 2025,
Label-Free Classification of Breast Cancer Using Raman Spectroscopy and Machine Learning
, ISSN: 1605-7422We applied Raman spectroscopy to an ex vivo study of breast cancer, and demonstrated accurate classification of healthy and cancerous samples using Machine Learning.
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Journal articleLeón-Herrera S, Anjos de Almeida V, Neves AL, et al., 2025,
Postgraduate digital health training programs for primary care physicians: a scoping review protocol
, BMJ Open, ISSN: 2044-6055IntroductionThe digital transformation of healthcare has created an urgent need for primary care physicians (PCPs) to acquire competencies in digital health. However, the structure and scope of postgraduate training programs remain poorly defined and unevenly implemented worldwide, and no scoping review has yet synthesized the evidence. This review aims to map existing postgraduate digital health training programs for PCPs, including their content, structure, and delivery approaches.Methods and analysis:This scoping review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) methodology and adhere to the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews) checklist. A systematic search will be conducted across five databases (PubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Library, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science) and relevant grey literature, covering publications from January 2019 to June 2025. Studies describing postgraduate digital health training programs for PCPs will be eligible for inclusion. Data will be extracted and synthesized descriptively and thematically using an inductive approach.Ethics and dissemination:As this study is based on a review of publicly available literature, ethical approval is not required. The findings will be disseminated through a peer-reviewed publication and conference presentations and will inform future curriculum development and policy in digital health education for PCPs. The results may also inform national curriculum reforms and accreditation standards, supporting more consistent and competency-based digital health education globally.Registration details:This scoping review protocol has been registered with the Open Science Framework (OSF), and it is available under the DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/HDC3P [1].
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Conference paperChen Q, Mandal N, Ramkumar P, et al., 2025,
Transcutaneous Fluorescence Spectroscopy for Non-invasive Assessment of Small Bowel Permeability in Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome Undergoing Low FODMAP Diet
, ISSN: 1605-7422Transcutaneous fluorescence spectroscopy was used to assess intestinal barrier function non-invasively in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), demonstrating effective discrimination between IBS patients and healthy volunteers and showing changes in IBS on low FODMAP diet.
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