Electronic Patient-Reported Outcome Measures in Radiation Oncology: Initial Experience After Workflow Implementation

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Digital Health
• Patient-Reported Outcomes

Background:

• Mobile health (mHealth) is increasingly used in medicine, but its application in radiotherapy for collecting electronic patient-reported outcome measures (ePROMs) is understudied.
• Radiotherapy patient care can potentially be enhanced by systematically gathering ePROMs during treatment.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and implement a novel web application, PROMetheus, for radiotherapy patients.
• To assess the feasibility and patient acceptance of the PROMetheus system.
• To investigate the correlation between ePROMs and the clinical course of radiotherapy patients.

Main Methods:

• The PROMetheus web app was used by 21 radiotherapy patients between January and June 2018.
• Patients reported side effects, symptoms, and quality of life using Patient Reported Outcome version of the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (PRO-CTCAE) items tailored to tumor site (head and neck, thoracic, pelvic).

Main Results:

• 17 out of 21 patients (81%) regularly submitted ePROMs, generating over 2500 data points.
• Questionnaire completion times averaged 3.3-5.2 minutes depending on tumor site.
• ePROMs successfully detected expected and unexpected side effects, showing increased severity during treatment and remission afterward. Notably, 53% of reporting patients experienced severe fatigue (PRO-CTCAE grade III/IV).

Conclusions:

• The PROMetheus system was successfully implemented with high patient acceptance.
• ePROMs hold significant potential for improving radiotherapy patient care through comprehensive symptom and side effect documentation, particularly for underreported issues.