JMIR Cancer

Breast cancer and its treatment can negatively affect women’s quality of life (QoL), including physical, psychological, and social well-being. Digital health interventions have been increasingly used to provide supportive care, but their effectiveness on QoL and related psychosocial outcomes remains unclear.

Telehealth use expanded rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since become integrated into routine oncology care. However, clinician experiences and confidence with telehealth may vary across oncology subspecialties, and these differences remain incompletely characterized.

Social media is a common source of cancer information for patients, caregivers, and survivors. Factors influencing engagement with oncology nutrition content on social media are not well-defined, despite the high prevalence of social media use for health information. The impact of bilingual content strategies on that engagement is also poorly understood.

Digital health solutions that incorporate electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePROs) hold promise for enhancing communication and patient engagement in pediatric oncology and palliative care. While ePROs are increasingly used in adult populations, their use in children, especially when combined with gamification, remains underexplored.

Mobile health (mHealth) apps offer new opportunities to support cancer survivors in managing their health, adopting healthier lifestyles, and increasing awareness of recurrence symptoms. However, despite their potential, little is known about survivors’ use of such tools in routine follow-up care, or which factors are associated with their engagement.

Accelerating the transition to value-based health care (VBHC) is essential to ensure sustainable care delivery. VBHC maximizes patient value by optimizing outcomes, controlling costs, and leveraging data to improve quality and patient-doctor communication. Integrating real-world data in health care is important to achieve informed decisions, especially in palliative care, where choices are complex.

Delayed cancer diagnosis leads to poorer outcomes. Unintended weight loss (UWL) is a nonspecific symptom associated with cancer and other serious conditions, which can make it complex to identify the underlying cause. Clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) can provide evidence-based recommendations to facilitate timely investigation and diagnosis.

Cardiovascular disease is a leading noncancer cause of morbidity and mortality among individuals diagnosed with cancer. Although modern cancer therapies have improved survival, many are associated with cardiotoxic effects that increase the risk of cardiovascular complications. Early identification of cardiovascular symptoms and signs may support timely clinical management. However, tracking cardiovascular health during cancer care can be complex for both patients and medical team participants, and important indicators, such as blood pressure changes, heart rate variability, fluid retention, chest pain, or new-onset fatigue, may be missed between clinic visits. Mobile health technologies offer potential tools to facilitate remote monitoring, yet behavioral factors influencing cardiovascular tracking in cardio-oncology remain insufficiently understood.

Emerging evidence indicates that inflammation plays a crucial role in cancer prognosis. Inflammatory response biomarkers are recognized as promising prognostic factors for mortality in patients with cancer.

Large language model (LLM)–based conversational agents are increasingly used in health care, yet their capacity to support genuine multiturn dialogue remains underexplored. In oncology, where patients and caregivers experience complex informational and emotional needs throughout the disease trajectory, conversational agents may support information provision, symptom consultation, and emotional assistance. However, research specifically examining multiturn conversational agents designed for patients with cancer and informal caregivers remains limited.

Chemotherapy-induced alopecia is among the most psychologically distressing adverse effects of systemic cancer therapy. Although scalp cooling is increasingly used to mitigate hair loss, it is still largely perceived as a cosmetic intervention. Its broader psychological relevance and the biological basis of treatment success, particularly the preservation of follicular integrity under ongoing cytotoxic exposure, remain insufficiently explored.

Lung cancer remains a major contributor to cancer mortality in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where late diagnosis, driven by low awareness, sociocultural barriers, and health system constraints, limits effective treatment. Despite the growing burden, evidence on patients’ quality of life (QoL) and symptom experience in SSA is limited.