Patients who undergo chemotherapy generally have adverse reactions that create discomfort. If these are reported in real time to the medical team, to be properly treated, this can improve the patient’s quality of life and even increase their survival. These are the findings of studies evaluating the effectiveness of telemonitoring for chemotherapy patients.  

 Online monitoring is a telehealth service that aims to track physiological changes, treatment evolution, and disease progression. It can take place through phone calls, but also through internet-connected devices that collect and send patient data in real time, such as smartwatches and other wearable devices.  

 The University of Utah (USA) together with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) developed a research involving 358 chemotherapy patients in 2022. The organizers implemented a call center that allowed the patient to rate, among 11 symptoms, the type of discomfort they were feeling and its severity, from zero to ten. The attendants also provided guidance to help patients manage their symptoms, making it possible to mitigate them.  

 With daily follow-up, the study showed that the group of people participating in the program had fewer strong (67%) and moderate (39%) symptoms, meaning a 43% reduction in the incidence of these types of occurrences. The data obtained are relevant when comparing the difference with patients who did not participate in the study.  

 Associated with clinical follow-up, the monitoring facilitated the professionals’ access to the patient’s information and offered greater comfort, with the possibility of home treatment. Not to mention the emotional stability for the patients, who felt accompanied throughout, having greater support from the medical team. 

 University of North Carolina 

In 2016, another research from the University of North Carolina (USA) also showed the benefits of telemonitoring in people with cancer, including increasing their survival. It was a randomized clinical trial with 766 respondents, who reported their symptoms to the medical team in real time. Patients with metastatic cancer who used the model during chemotherapy lived an average of five months longer than the others who did not.  

 Led by Dr. Ethan Basch, the research involved patients with cancer of the genitourinary tract, gynecological, breast, and lung undergoing chemotherapy treatment, who were divided into two groups. The former was instructed to call the doctors between their appointments if necessary; the latter used the Symptom Tracking and Reporting (STAR) tablet tool specially developed for the research. 

 Every week, the two groups reported whether they were experiencing any of the 12 most common symptoms seen as a result of chemotherapy, such as loss of appetite, nausea, and pain, on a scale of one to five. They could report their feelings at their weekly appointment, by phone calls, or by sending alerts to the nursing staff, who acted quickly in 75% of cases. Patients who used the STAR tool had a median survival of 31.2 months, while the others had a average survival of 26 months.  

 In a text published on the AC Camargo Hospital website, Dr. Aldo Dettino, from the Clinical Oncology team, who accompanied the study presentation, opined that “the work showed how early symptom control improves outcomes and can even lead to gains in overall survival, in even greater magnitude than the gains seen with systemic cancer treatment innovations.” 

 Therefore, the results obtained in the two experiments demonstrate the importance of controlling and intervening quickly in the symptoms of chemotherapy patients, as well as having accuracy about the reported condition. In this process, telemonitoring tends to be an increasingly used tool.