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PONTI Study

Prevention of Neural Tube Defects by Inositol

  • Have you had a pregnancy affected by a neural tube defect?
  • Are you planning a further pregnancy?

We are inviting women who have experienced a pregnancy involving a neural tube defect (eg, spina bifida or anencephaly), and are now planning a further pregnancy, to take part in an important new research project.  Professor Andrew Copp and his team at the Institute of Child Health in London are carrying out a study which is evaluating a new vitamin treatment for preventing neural tube defects.

  • Why are we carrying out a clinical trial?

We already know that folic acid can prevent many neural tube defects, but for some women folic acid doesn’t seem to have any effect.  Scientific research has shown that another vitamin called Inositol may help to prevent neural tube defects which cannot be prevented by folic acid.  Therefore, we think that a combination of folic acid with inositol may prevent more cases of neural tube defects than folic acid alone.
So if you have had an affected pregnancy and want to help us to improve our understanding of this condition, and possibly to prevent more cases in the future, we’d like to hear from you.  

  • What does the study involve?

Participation involves taking a dose of inositol or placebo along with your normal folic acid from the time you plan to become pregnant until the end of the first three months of pregnancy. You will also need to provide three urine samples during the study and to supply information on the outcome of your pregnancy. There will be no need to travel to the Institute of Child Health – instead we will be in contact by telephone and tablets will be sent to you by post. Inositol is a vitamin which occurs naturally in many foods and human cells and has been used safely in many other research studies.  

  • If you would like to find out more about this study and how to get involved…


Please contact: Victoria Shepherd, Trial Co-ordinator
Telephone number: 020 7905 2822, or 07772 258 243
E-mail: ponti@ich.ucl.ac.uk

  • For further information see the following links:

Other related links


Page last modified on 05 jul 11 09:41