App adds 5 months to patients’ lives

A SMARTPHONE app that tracks cancer symptoms has been shown to increase life expectancy by five months.

It asks patients a series of questions on their level of pain, whether they are very tired or suffering any other adverse effects from the cancer or treatment. Patients type in this information every week and it is sent back to doctors, who work out whether to adjust their treatment.

A trial demonstrating the success of the app which involved 766 patients with advanced cancer will be presented later today at the American Society for Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago.

All patients were undergoing chemotherapy and those who used the app survived for an average of 31.2 months after starting treatment. This was five months longer than the average survival time for those not using the app, which was 26 months. The results of the University of North Carolina study are so promising that work by researchers at the universities of Leeds and Birmingham could eventually lead to similar apps being used in the NHS.