Dr. Jean-Philippe Lafrance

Award: MSSS-KRESCENT Joint New Investigator Award
Institution: Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital Research Centre
Year : 2010-2013

Lay Summary

Dr. Jean-Philippe Lafrance is a new investigator at the Hôptial Maisonneuve-Rosement Research Centre. He obtained his M.D. from the University of Montreal and also has a Masters in Epidemiology from McGill. More recently he completed his post-doctorate fellowship in pharmacoepidemiology under the supervision of Donald Miller at Boston University. Dr. Lafrance will study the incidence and risk factors of infection-related hospitalizations in patient receiving dialysis. Infections are the second leading cause of mortality, after cardiovascular disease, in patients receiving dialysis. Hospitalizations caused by an infection are highly frequent in patients undergoing dialysis treatments and may be followed by high risk of complications or death. Dr. Lafrance’s research aims to group information already collected in different provincial or national registries in order to evaluate the medical complications in patients undergoing dialysis. More precisely, he wants to establish the frequency of hospitalizations caused by an infection and who (and why) is more susceptible to be hospitalized for that reason. Monitoring complications and mortality in dialysis patients is essential for administrators and other decision makers to plan resource allocation and to develop prevention strategies. These strategies will potentially reduce the burden of dialysis for the patients and for the health care system.