Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, is the first site in the state and one of just a few sites in the world to study an investigational smartphone app designed to record a patient’s voice and facial and body movements to assist with a possible stroke diagnosis.
“CVA-Flow aims to remove the subjectivity of the neurological assessment of stroke patients. Any health care provider can record a brief video of the patient, and artificial intelligence (AI) provides the probability that the patient may have a large vessel occlusion, or LVO,” said neurosurgeon Demetrius Lopes, MD, Advocate Aurora Research Institute’s principal investigator for the study. “Trained stroke team members can also review and analyze the video to assess whether the patient has findings indicative of a stroke.”
The stroke team could also potentially use the recordings of the CVA-Flow test to assess the severity and cause of the stroke.
The clinical trial is designed to validate the accuracy of the CVA-Flow AI algorithm.
Previous studies have investigated the use of telehealth in performing stroke assessments. However, those studies evaluated more generalized telehealth applications that were not specifically designed for neurological evaluation and therefore required experienced facilitators to guide a patient through the exam.
“In this study, the app is designed to guide the user through the entire stroke test, which could potentially allow for more timely assessment of stroke symptoms and thus a more timely diagnosis and treatment,” said Melissa Kadar, Director of the Research Institute’s Center of Excellence in Neuroscience Research. “And, as we know, with stroke, time is brain.”
Researchers will enroll participants with a suspected stroke at the emergency department prior to treatment. Participation in the study will last for up to two weeks, or the duration of the participant’s hospitalization.
Just six study centers around the world will join in the clinical trial, enrolling approximately 460 participants.
The clinical trial, “A multi-center, non-interventional prospective clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of CVA-Flow,” is sponsored by Cvaid Medical, developer of the CVA-Flow app.
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