Study: Smartphone app boosts patients' adherence to breast cancer treatment plans

"A smartphone app could improve breast cancer patients’ adherence to multidisciplinary treatment plans, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

TOP LINE DATA

A total of 4,475 patients who had received a breast cancer diagnosis and had undergone a discussion about multidisciplinary treatment between March 2013 and May 2019 were included in the study.

They were sorted into three groups; 2,966 were part of the pre-app cohort, who received treatment before the November 2017 launch of the app; 861 were part of the app non-used cohort; and 648 were part of the app-used group.

Patients in the app-used cohort were less likely to diverge from multidisciplinary treatment recommendations compared with the patients in the pre-app group. There wasn’t a significant difference between the pre-app and non-used groups.

HOW IT WAS DONE

Researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of breast cancer patients who received a discussion about multidisciplinary treatment at Shanghai Ruijin Hospital. They pulled demographic and clinical data as well as follow-up information from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Breast Cancer Database.

The pre-app group had a diagnosis between March 2013 and October 2017. The app-used and non-used cohorts received their diagnoses between November 2017 and May 2019. It was up to patients to choose to use the app, and they were sorted into the app-used cohort if they had at least one instance of logging records identified from the app’s back end..." Lire la suite