A multicenter study led by the Netherlands Cancer Institute used Kaiku Health digital patient management platform to investigate the use of digital patient monitoring and support of patients with advanced melanoma. The results published at ESMO 2022 annual conference suggest that Kaiku Health can be used to support patients and to collect real-world evidence. They can also help to understand the development of symptoms and quality of life of the patients.
The study investigated a specific patient monitoring module developed for patients with advanced and metastatic BRAF V600E/K–mutant melanoma treated with dabrafenib plus trametinib. The key features of the module were tracking of symptoms and quality of life of patients, providing automated self-guidance on symptom management as well as in-app patient support and educational materials. Machine-learning based algorithms were also trained to predict development of symptoms with the data collected during the pilot. The trained models for 9 monitored symptoms had high performance and will be implemented to the module.
The module included an algorithm that was designed to help track and manage acute fever in patients. Fever is a common symptom with dabrafenib plus trametinib that often leads to discontinuation of the treatment. Therefore tracking its onset and development in real-time is critical. When a patient reported fever, they were provided with automated guidance to manage it, and the fever was automatically followed up during the next day through the application. This was repeated until the symptom was resolved. All cases of acute fever were successfully resolved through the module.
The study was a part of the Kaiku Health and Novartis collaboration announced in 2021. The results will be presented at the ESMO 2022 annual conference on Saturday, September 10, by the first author Judith Lijnsvelt from the Netherlands Cancer Institute.
About Kaiku Health
Kaiku Health is a digital health intervention platform classified as a Medical Device in cancer care. Its algorithms screen symptoms, notify care teams and provide personalised support for patients. Kaiku Health has modules for over 25 cancer types across different cancer care pathways. Since 2020 Kaiku Health has been a part of Elekta.