2022/04/12
Keio University School of Medicine
A research group led by Senior Assistant Professor Satoshi Hayashida and Professor Yuko Kitagawa of the Department of Surgery (General and Gastroenterological), Keio University School of Medicine; Professor Hiroaki Miyata of the same university's Department of Health Policy and Management; and Professor Hiromitsu Kanno of the Department of Surgery, Teikyo University School of Medicine, has developed and operated a LINE-based ePRO acquisition system. This system, which uses the social media tool LINE to collect information on the health status and drug side effects of breast cancer patients, has been shown to enable efficient information gathering in clinical practice.
In the LINE-based ePRO acquisition system, pre-determined messages are periodically sent to the LINE application installed on patients' smartphones. By responding with simple tap operations, it is possible to track symptoms in a format compliant with PRO-CTCAE, the international standard for grading the severity of side effects from cancer therapeutic agents.
This clinical study was conducted as a feasibility study, providing the LINE-based ePRO acquisition system to patients undergoing drug therapy for breast cancer to examine the continuity of use and whether patient information could be successfully obtained.
The results showed that the number of user responses and the response rate to questions via LINE were extremely high compared to similar overseas studies using dedicated applications. Furthermore, patients over 60 years of age were also able to use and continue using the system successfully. This is likely because the system was built on the foundation of LINE, a tool used in daily life, which allowed patients to operate it without confusion.
The results of this study revealed that the LINE-based ePRO acquisition system makes it possible to collect daily information on side effects from breast cancer patients across a wide range of age groups. This suggests the potential to provide a new form of safer and more secure medical care in the future, for instance, by proactively identifying severe side effects from anticancer drugs.
The results of this research were published in the online edition of the international scientific journal "Cancer Science" on March 12, 2022 (US Eastern Time).
Please see below for the full press release.