Mytrus, a San Francisco-based innovative clinical technology and services company, announced that its iPad application explaining informed consent prior to clinical trial patient enrollment has been selected for use in a global, multi-year study supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

Led by researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Stroke Sciences Group, the five-year POINT clinical trial involves 4,150 patients in 120 clinical test sites in every region of the globe. A number of NINDS Neurological Emergencies Treatment Trials (NETT) Network clinical site hubs are participating, supplemented and supported by sites through the NETT Clinical Coordinating Center at the University of Michigan.

"We believe that a visual and interactive method of informing patients about the trial will standardize the way patients are informed and consented across any large and diverse study,” said Claiborne Johnston, MD, PhD, principal investigator of the POINT trial and associate vice chancellor of research at the University of California, San Francisco.

Using animation and other visual imagery, the Mytrus iPad application is the first in the industry to condense the complex and critical disclosure information required at the start of a clinical trial into an easy-to-understand, digitized format. This new approach not only helps patients better understand the clinical trial process, it also helps researchers control costs through quicker study starts. It is also the perfect tool for use with a diverse population, an important consideration for protocol compliance in global studies dependent on participants with varying levels of education.

The Mytrus iPad application can be tailored to support any clinical trial design or protocol. For this project, Mytrus created three programs: English, Spanish and Mandarin.

“Mytrus continues to rapidly expand the use of its technology in clinical trials at home and abroad,” said Anthony Costello, CEO of Mytrus. “Our selection for use in this long-term study, spanning sites in North and South America, Asia/Pacific and Europe, continues to validate our platform as one that is easy to adopt and that provides an immediate ROI.”