To combat lagging adoption of the trauma drug tranexamic acid, a British researcher has produced a 40-second claymation video that he hopes will go viral and raise awareness about the medication.
Ian Roberts, an epidemiologist and professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, enlisted his nephew, an animation student, to develop the stop-motion claymation video, which features "Tran-man," a car crash victim who is saved by the blood-clotting drug.
The video—which is geared toward physicians—attempts to incorporate something beyond cold, hard facts to capture medical professionals' attention, ABC News reports. "What makes things move on the Web is emotion," Roberts said. "It's not a funny problem, but we were looking to inject surprise and a bit of emotion into it."
Specifically, the video points physicians to the 2010 CRASH-2 trial, which found that transexamic acid reduces fatal bleeding events among trauma patients by 15%. According to Roberts, if all hospitals worldwide administered the drug to trauma patients, 140,000 lives annually could be saved.
However, some physicians say their colleagues may not be receptive to the video, ABC News reports. "In order for there to be a real buy-in, [physicians] will need real evidence that it works," said Ronald Simon, director of the trauma center at New York City-based Bellevue Hospital. "For most physicians, what will change their practice will not be a clever animation."
Simon also notes that the CRASH-2 trial was not conducted in the United States, so American physicians may be more reluctant to adopt transexamic acid, instead opting to use other more familiar trauma drugs, such as Factor VII (Gever, MedPage Today, 11/17; Gann, ABC News, 11/17; Press Association/Google News, 11/17).
