Feasibility of Using Wearables for Home Monitoring during Radiotherapy for Head and Neck Cancer—Results from the OncoWatch 1.0 Study

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Documents

  • Fulltext

    Final published version, 569 KB, PDF document

Background: Consumer wearables allow objective health data monitoring, e.g., of physical activity and heart rate, which might change over a cancer treatment course. Patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) receiving radiotherapy (RT) with curative intent typically experience side effects such as pain, decreased appetite, and dehydration, which may lead to hospitalizations. Therefore, health data monitoring could be important to understand a patient’s condition outside the hospital. The OncoWatch 1.0 study investigated the feasibility of using smartwatches for patients with HNC receiving RT. Methods: This study was a prospective, single-cohort feasibility study. The inclusion criteria were patients ≥ 18 years of age who planned to receive curatively intended radiotherapy for HNC. Consenting patients were asked to wear a smartwatch during RT and until two weeks after the end of RT. The primary endpoint was adherence. The secondary endpoints were data acquisition and variations in heart rate and physical activity. Results: Ten patients were included, with a median age of 62 years and eight males. The adherence rate for wearing the watch >12 h/d over the study period was 31%. The data acquisition rate was 61%. Conclusions: Although the primary endpoint was not reached, new knowledge has been established, including the secure data setup and key points that need to be addressed in future studies.

Original languageEnglish
Article number422
JournalCancers
Volume15
Issue number2
ISSN2072-6694
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was funded by The Health Foundation, grant number 17-B-0257; the Danish Comprehensive Cancer Centre Radiotherapy and Danish Cancer Society, grant number R191-A11526; the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, grant number 18-10; the A.P. Moller Foundation, grant number 19-L-0040; the Holm’s Memorial Foundation, grant number 20006-1824; Varian; the Knowledge Centre for Telehealth Capital Region of Denmark; the Rigshospitalet’s foundation to support oncological research; and The Oncological Research Foundation Rigshospitalet.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the authors.

    Research areas

  • head and neck cancer, home monitoring, patient-generated health data, radiotherapy, smartwatch, wearables

ID: 373548291