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doc.ai Digital Health Trial Aims to Improve Precision in Epilepsy TreatmentPALO ALTO, Calif., Oct. 16, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- doc.ai, a digital health company designed for a new generation of medical research, announced today the opening of an Epilepsy Digital Health Trial focused on how Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) can help identify the right treatment for the right patient at the right time.
The study, led by principal investigator Robert Fisher, MD PhD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine and director of the Stanford Epilepsy Center, will deploy and test A.I. to develop a predictive model for treatment. Epilepsy, a neurological disorder characterized by unprovoked and recurrent seizures, affects 65 million people across the globe and 3.4 million in the United States. While the cause of seizures is largely unknown, more than 25 medications have been developed to help manage symptoms. The method of drug delivery is still largely a matter of trial and error with over 14,000 possible combinations of up to three drugs to analyze and correlate for treatment, leaving patients suffering from severe side effects and adverse reactions, sometimes for years. "We're testing our A.I. capabilities to help clinicians and their patients to find the optimal anti-seizure drug for an individual," said Walter De Brouwer, CEO of doc.ai. "Utilizing A.I. and real-world data from multiple sources for medical research is a step forward in medicine. It has the potential to reduce costs and increase participation by reaching users on the devices they use every day." "Epilepsy, as a condition, is at the forefront of medical research and new discoveries about treatment decisions and diagnostics advance medicine as a whole," says De Brouwer. The at-home, HIPAA-compliant and IRB-approved Digital Health Trial seeks to enroll up to 1,000 eligible participants between September 2019 and September 2020. Once enrolled via the doc.ai app, participants will keep n online diary tracking their seizure episodes and side effects of medication for three months. Along with the self-reported data, the study will collect and analyze patients' health data, including an array of personal-omics information, such as the genome (DNA test provided by Kailos), phenome to capture physical traits, physiome for exercise and activity tracking, pharmacome or medication tracking and finally, the exposome, which includes environmental exposures. The trial also leverages doc.ai A.I. technologies such as natural language processing for participants to capture a photograph of their medication bottles for automatic import. "doc.ai has a robust multi-omics data pipeline, and we're proud to contribute DNA tests free of charge to advance medicine," said Troy Moore, Chief Scientific Officer, Kailos Genetics, Inc. "We hope to see some indications of clinical utility for DNA testing and treating someone with a variety of types of epilepsy. It's early days, and together we're testing a model of focused delivery to different population groups, which could strengthen links between epilepsy and genetics and show downstream outcomes." At the end of the trial, participants will receive an individualized report of all the data collected that they can share with their own physicians. This will allow participants to have a full picture of their epilepsy during the three-month period, including charts and tables, seizure diaries, and summaries of past medication histories. "We're excited to see continued advancement in the way we treat epilepsy," said Sonya Dumanis, PhD, Senior Director of Innovation, Epilepsy Foundation. "The Digital Health Trial has the potential to provide physicians and people with epilepsy with new options to optimize and personalize treatment. Our hope is that the use of A.I. to develop a predictive model to help identify the right approach for each person will help those struggling to gain better seizure control." The Digital Health Trial for epilepsy is now open for initial enrollment. Participants must be between 18 and 100 years old, have an epilepsy diagnosis and a smartphone using the iOS operating system, and live in the U.S. In addition to advancing epilepsy research, participants will earn rewards, which can be redeemed in the doc.ai marketplace for products and services at the completion of the trial. doc.ai currently has two other Digital Health Trials open for Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Allergies. To learn more about research at doc.ai or to join the Epilepsy Digital Health Trial, download the doc.ai app. About doc.ai
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