TY  - JOUR
AU  - Ghods, Alireza
AU  - Shahrokni, Armin
AU  - Ghasemzadeh, Hassan
AU  - Cook, Diane
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/11/26
TI  - Remote Monitoring of the Performance Status and Burden of Symptoms of Patients With Gastrointestinal Cancer Via a Consumer-Based Activity Tracker: Quantitative Cohort Study
JO  - JMIR Cancer
SP  - e22931
VL  - 7
IS  - 4
KW  - step count
KW  - performance status
KW  - symptom
KW  - wearable
KW  - activity tracker
KW  - gastrointestinal cancer
KW  - monitoring
KW  - cancer
KW  - gastrointestinal
KW  - burden
AB  - Background: The number of older patients with gastrointestinal cancer is increasing due to an aging global population. Minimizing reliance on an in-clinic patient performance status test to determine a patient’s prognosis and course of treatment can improve resource utilization. Further, current performance status measurements cannot capture patients' constant changes. These measurements also rely on self-reports, which are subjective and subject to bias. Real-time monitoring of patients' activities may allow for a more accurate assessment of patients’ performance status while minimizing resource utilization. Objective: This study investigates the validity of consumer-based activity trackers for monitoring the performance status of patients with gastrointestinal cancer. Methods: A total of 27 consenting patients (63% male, median age 58 years) wore a consumer-based activity tracker 7 days before chemotherapy and 14 days after receiving their first treatment. The provider assessed patients using the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status (ECOG-PS) scale and Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale-Short Form (MSAS-SF) before and after chemotherapy visits. The statistical correlations between ECOG-PS and MSAS-SF scores and patients’ daily step counts were assessed. Results: The daily step counts yielded the highest correlation with the patients' ECOG-PS scores after chemotherapy (P<.001). The patients with higher ECOG-PS scores experienced a higher fluctuation in their step counts. The patients who walked more prechemotherapy (mean 6071 steps per day) and postchemotherapy (mean 5930 steps per day) had a lower MSAS-SF score (lower burden of symptoms) compared to patients who walked less prechemotherapy (mean 5205 steps per day) and postchemotherapy (mean 4437 steps per day). Conclusions: This study demonstrates the feasibility of using inexpensive, consumer-based activity trackers for the remote monitoring of performance status in the gastrointestinal cancer population. The findings need to be validated in a larger population for generalizability. 
SN  - 2369-1999
UR  - https://cancer.jmir.org/2021/4/e22931
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/22931
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34842527
DO  - 10.2196/22931
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/22931
ER  -