Landscape Analysis of Oncology Mobile Health Applications

More than 325,000 mobile health (mhealth) applications (apps) have been developed. We sought to describe the state of oncology-specific apps and to highlight areas of strength and opportunities for future development.

We searched for oncology apps in the Apple iOS and Google Play app stores in January 2020. Apps were classified by English language support, date of last update, downloads, intended audience, intended purpose, and developer type.

We identified 794 oncology-specific, English language applications; only 257 (32%) met basic recency standards and were considered evaluable. Of evaluable apps, almost half (47%) were found in the Medical Store Category and the majority were free (88%). The most common intended audience was health care professionals (45%), with 28% being geared toward the general public and 27% being intended for patients. The intended function was education for 36%, clinical decision support for 19.5%, and patient support for 18%. Only 23% of education apps and 40% of clinical decision support apps reported any formal app content review process. Web developers created 61.5% of apps, scientific societies created 10%, and hospitals or health care organizations created just 6%. Of 54 studies that used mobile apps in oncology identified by a recent meta-analysis, only two could be matched to commercially available apps from our study, suggesting a substantial divide between investigation and product dissemination.

Relatively few oncology-related apps exist in the commercial marketplace, up-to-date apps are uncommon, and there is a notable absence of key oncology stakeholders in app development. Meaningful development opportunities exist.