Novel Tool to Monitor Adherence to Oral Oncolytics: A Pilot Study

Nonadherence is a significant issue in cancer care, especially as more oral therapies become available. Measuring and optimizing adherence to such therapies is challenging. In this study, we tested a novel technology that records real-time medication-taking behavior from a smart prescription bottle and can communicate with patients via text message to intervene in cases of nonadherence.

We conducted a 28-patient pilot study to assess the feasibility of this technology in measuring and improving adherence in patients taking capecitabine, an oral chemotherapy agent with a complex, cyclical regimen. The study had a preintervention stage, during which patients were monitored, and an intervention stage, during which the text messaging intervention was enabled.

During preintervention, patients had an average self-adherence of 89%, and during post intervention, they had an average adherence of 90%. We defined three categories of patients by change in adherence: category 1 (> 8%), category 2 (-8% to 8%), and category 3 (< -8%). Patients in category 1 tended to live in regions with lower average household income (mean = $58,937 in US dollars [USD]) than those in category 2 (mean = $77,482 USD) and category 3 (mean = $90,972 USD). Of poststudy survey respondents, most indicated that they would want to continue using this technology and that they would recommend it to others.

This novel technology is able to monitor, measure, and intervene for patients taking capecitabine in real time. Adherence overall was high, and some patients appeared to benefit more from text-message interventions. Future work should focus on patients deemed high risk for nonadherence.