Digital patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for remote monitoring of patients on cancer treatment: a cross-sectional questionnaire feasibility study (Preprint)
BACKGROUND Oncology has increasing outpatient activity related to increased cancer incidence, better survival rates and more treatments. Innovative technological solutions could help deal with this increasing demand and digital patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) to identify those patients that need a face-to-face (FTF) appointment is one potential approach. OBJECTIVE Our study aimed to assess the feasibility of digital PROM questionnaires to enable remote symptom monitoring for patients on cancer treatment and their ability to determine the requirement for a FTF appointment. METHODS This study was performed at a tertiary oncology centre between December 2018 and February 2019. Target clinics covered both systemic therapy and radiotherapy cohorts. The Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) helped form the basis for acute toxicity questionnaires which were adapted into patient-friendly language. Treatment-specific digital PROM questionnaires were answered by patients and their clinicians alongside face-to-face appointments. Patients and clinicians did not see each other’s results, which were not used for clinical decisions. Agreement between patients and clinicians was assessed through descriptive statistics. Patient and staff feedback was also obtained. RESULTS 90 patients took part in the study across 10 different treatment pathways. By comparing paired patient and clinician responses, the sensitivity of the patient-completed questionnaires in correctly determining the need for FTF review was 93.6% and no patients with severe toxicity would have been missed with the questionnaires. Digital PROMs revealed 28.9% of participating patients did not need FTF review based on their symptoms. Certain oncological treatment pathways, such as immunotherapy, were found to have a larger proportion of patients with minimal symptoms compared to others, such as conventional chemotherapy. Patient and staff feedback showed high approval with digital PROMs and their potential for use in remote monitoring. CONCLUSIONS Digital PROM questionnaires can feasibly determine the need for FTF review in ‘on treatment’ oncology clinics. Their use with specific treatments could safely reduce the requirement for FTF care and future work should evaluate their application in the remote monitoring of patients.