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Individuals with metastatic most cancers who recurrently report their signs by way of a home-based digital monitoring system skilled improved high quality of life, medical outcomes and well-being, in addition to fewer emergency division visits than those that did not file stories. Each teams had related general survival charges, based on College of North Carolina Lineberger Complete Most cancers Middle researchers and their colleagues.
The outcomes from the nationwide multicenter research appeared in Nature Medication on Feb. 7.
“Doctors and nurses are often unaware of symptoms and side effects that can worsen for cancer patients between office visits, leading to complications and unnecessary suffering,” mentioned lead writer Ethan Basch, MD, MSc, the Richard M. Goldberg Distinguished Professor of Medication and chief of medical oncology at UNC College of Medication and director of the Most cancers Outcomes Analysis Program at UNC Lineberger.
“The patient-reported outcomes, or PRO, system was developed to enable patients to report their own symptoms and side effects and our study showed that PRO keeps care teams informed so that they can intervene promptly to help patients.”
The PRO-TECT randomized medical trial was performed in 52 neighborhood oncology practices in 26 states to evaluate the real-world influence of digital PRO symptom monitoring on medical outcomes in comparison with typical care.
The research enrolled 1,191 sufferers. To find out if symptom monitoring with the digital PRO system improved outcomes, roughly half (593) of the sufferers have been randomly assigned to the PRO arm and the remaining (598) have been assigned to the same old care/management arm. Sufferers within the PRO arm might report their signs utilizing a web-based program or an automatic phone system.
The median age of contributors was 63 years, near 17% by no means used the web and about 26% of individuals have been handled at rural follow areas.
Though there was no general survival distinction between individuals who used PRO and those that didn’t, which was the research’s main final result, there have been quite a few quality-of-life advantages:
A 6.1% discount in emergency visits for sufferers who used PRO in comparison with those that had typical care. There additionally was a 16% longer time earlier than a primary emergency go to with PRO in comparison with typical care.
Individuals within the PRO arm skilled a major delay in deterioration of bodily operate (a median of 12.6 vs. 8.5 months), a 31% delay in signs (12.7 vs. 9.9 months), and a 28% enchancment in health-related quality-of-life components (15.6 vs. 12.2 months) in comparison with those that didn’t use PRO, respectively.
Most sufferers felt that PRO improved discussions with their care crew (77%), made them really feel extra in charge of their care (84%), and would suggest it to different sufferers (91%).
91.5% of sufferers accomplished scheduled weekly symptom surveys.
“Electronic medical recordkeeping has been a bane for some physicians and patients who find it frustrating to navigate patient portal systems—mitigating those frustrations was a central consideration in configuring the PRO system in this study,” Basch mentioned.
“PRO largely circumvents physicians and is managed by nurses and/or patient navigators, whose jobs often encompass symptom management and care coordination. The PRO systems have also proven very easy for patients to use, in terms of technical ability.”
The trial was designed to be generalizable throughout all most cancers sorts and coverings. The research outcomes, primarily based on the variety of the handfuls of varieties of cancers represented within the affected person inhabitants, confirmed this generalizability.
Though these are the ultimate outcomes from the PRO-TECT research, the investigators are planning sub-study analyses primarily based on interviews with sufferers, nurses and medical doctors; analysis of outcomes primarily based on varied affected person traits resembling most cancers kind, race, and geography; and varied methodological evaluations of the PRO expertise.
“While there have been some studies evaluating the benefits of PRO for patients with earlier stage cancers who get chemotherapy, radiation or surgeries for their cancer, there is less conclusive evidence of benefit for PRO in non-metastatic disease, so we certainly hope researchers will take an interest in establishing more studies to provide evidence of that benefit,” concluded Basch.
Extra data:
Symptom monitoring with digital patient-reported outcomes throughout most cancers therapy: last outcomes of the PRO-TECT cluster-randomized trial, Nature Medication (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-025-03507-y
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College of North Carolina Well being Care
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Digital reporting of signs by most cancers sufferers can enhance high quality of life and cut back emergency visits (2025, February 7)
retrieved 7 February 2025
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