CareAcross poster on Quality of Life interventions presented at ASCO 2022
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is a leading medical organisation representing oncology professionals. Every year, ASCO organises a meeting (which attracts thousands of attendees caring for people with cancer) to discuss state-of-the-art treatment modalities, new research findings, and ongoing progress into scientific breakthroughs.
The ASCO 2022 Annual Meeting took place physically in Chicago (3-7 June), after 2 years of being held online due to COVID-19 restrictions. Visitors from all around the world joined both in-person and online.
CareAcross at ASCO 2022
CareAcross attended the ASCO Annual Meeting in-person in Chicago. There, we had the chance to meet with old and new acquaintances and discuss developments in the field. The highlight of our presence, though, was the presentation of our latest abstract and poster, titled:
“Comparative effectiveness of different interventions for cancer related fatigue delivered digitally by online platforms”.
Personalised support through online platforms
Patients who use the CareAcross patient services platform receive tailored support as soon as they start interacting with it. Any aspects of their cancer journey (including their specific cancer diagnosis, treatments, comorbidities and others) lead to patient-friendly, informative and supportive material that is based on scientific evidence.
One of the most important benefits of the platform is related to patients’ side effects. More specifically, patients can report side effects on an ongoing basis, and receive personalised support to improve their quality of life. The supportive material encompasses many topics, and patients may receive several combinations.
Among the most reported side effects of cancer (regardless of tumour type) is fatigue. Our study’s aim is to explore different interventions and their effectiveness on cancer-related fatigue, as reported by patients digitally through online platforms.
Different interventions on thousands of patients
Our research focuses on 1,456 cancer patients from 8 countries that have experienced fatigue as a side-effect at least once. These real world data come from patients mostly from European countries (UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy) and their cancer types include breast, lung, colorectal or prostate cancer.
This analysis focuses on persistent fatigue: of the above patient group, 1,215 patients reported fatigue more than once. Based on this input, patients received different combinations of supportive material on the below diverse set of topics:
- physical activity
- hydration
- food timing
- food types
- relaxation exercises
- fatigue diary
- anaemia warning
- physical activity before and after treatment
The study identified 7 major combinations of the above topics (all combinations included the “physical activity” topic). Subsequently, it evaluated the comparative effectiveness of each combination in order to derive relevant patterns.
Which combinations were the most successful?
Overall, “hydration” stands out as consistently linked with the most effective material. While food-related topics have an unclear impact on patients' fatigue, “food timing” is more impactful than "food types".
Comparative analysis shows that “anaemia warnings” and “rest” tend to be among the most effective combinations.
Combining “hydration”, “food timing”, “relaxation exercises” and “fatigue diary” with “physical activity” led to the most effective permutation, helping 41.6% of patients overcome fatigue.. However, more is not necessarily better: combining all topics does not result in the best outcomes; in our analysis, it led to an effectiveness of 32.2%.
Conclusions
Real-world data from 1,215 patients indicate that digitally delivered personalised fatigue interventions can be effective in several combinations.
Some interventions, including “hydration”, appear to be among the most effective. However, the nature of these interventions along with the complexities of fatigue complicates their thorough evaluation.
CareAcross continues to evolve its impactful patient support services to directly empower patients throughout their journey, Moreover, it delivers real-world evidence, patient reported outcomes and patient insights that can enhance the industry’s ability to analyse and act upon the actual patient experience across numerous parameters (including patient characteristics and treatment modalities). Finally, the depth of analytics and correlations across patient groups can help healthcare professionals from all around the world better understand the patient experience and improve their patients’ quality of life.
You can read the abstract on the ASCO Annual Meeting website.
Acknowledgements
The authors of this abstract would like to thank the entire CareAcross team for conducting this research, while respecting patients’ personal data and anonymity. We would also like to thank ASCO for giving the opportunity to thousands of attendees to examine our latest findings during one more of its Annual Meetings.
However, most importantly, we are grateful to all the patients who participate in these activities. Reporting the side effects they experience is not pleasant, but through this engagement, their significant contribution provides the scientific community with valuable information that can help advance research and further improve their quality of life.
Relevant material
CareAcross Posters presented at ESMO Breast Cancer 2022
CareAcross Posters presented at ASCO 2021