The POLAR Vision

The vision for the POLAR clinical trial was conceptualised from A/Prof David Tingay’s PhD research in the early 2000’s. In his research studies, A/Prof Tingay was able to show that PEEP levels altered lung volume and oxygen levels in very sick babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Similar work was also being undertaken by Prof Anton van Kaam in the Netherlands at the same time. 

Realising the potential to adapt this therapy to the delivery room, where risk was highest and solutions lacking, A/Prof Tingay and Prof Peter Davis, a Neonatologist at Melbourne’s Royal Women’s Hospital, jointly undertook a series of pre-clinical studies from 2009-2016, in order to develop and test the best methods to support the preterm lung at birth.  

From this work, A/Prof Tingay and Prof Davis determined that the dynamic PEEP strategy resulted in the least lung injury whilst also providing the best oxygen levels for the preterm lung. It is this strategy that is now formally being trialled within the POLAR clinical trial. 

From this pre-clinical work in the early 2000’s, the POLAR Trial team was formed and the concept for the POLAR clinical trial was born. The POLAR Trial team brings together clinicians and researchers from across the world with expertise in helping the lungs of preterm babies.