The e-Symptom Management using Advanced Symptom Management System Remote Technology (eSMART) is funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (Project N° 602289). Τhe clinical trial aims to evaluate the impact of a mobile phone-based, remote monitoring, symptom management intervention (Advanced Symptom Management System, ASyMS) on the delivery of care to people diagnosed with non metastatic breast, colorectal or haematological cancer during chemotherapy and for one year after treatment. 

Κathi Apostolidis, Vice President ECPC, will present the patient’s perspective on eSMART at the forthcoming international conference mHealth for improving quality of life-Enhancing Cancer Supportive Care at Bocconi University in Milan, Italy, on April 4, 2014. Her presentation “mHealth in cancer chemotherapy: how eSMART can improve quality of life” will focus on mobile technology in supportive cancer care, more specifically, how mhealth can improve the quality of life of cancer patients undergoing or having completed chemotherapy.

ECPC participates in the recently launched eSMART project, led by Prof. Nora Kearney of the University of Surrey. The eSMART consortium of 12 partners brings together all the necessary expertise and resources to perform this innovative trial to address the challenges of delivering optimal supportive care to people with cancer receiving chemotherapy. The European partners are 9 leading academic cancer care specialists, 2 organisations specialising in telehealth and ECPC. Members of the European Cancer Patient Coalition will have an integral role as advisors at every stage of the program to provide advice and feedback and ensure that work is conducted in line with patients’ perspectives and needs.

Even if there is no univocal definition of mobile health (mhealth), the most common and diffused definition is the one of WHO, which defines mhealth as “medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and other wireless devices” (WHO Global Observatory for eHealth, 2011).

This is particularly relevant in cancer supportive care, which aims at relieving and improving the quality of life of the patients and their carers, by serving as a bridge between the standard biomedical approach to medical care and the non-medical aspects of a patient’s healing, their families and their caregivers. Cancer supportive care tries to ensure that patient’s needs are addressed by making sure that the patient’s pain and other physical symptoms are managed. Supportive care should also aim at providing accurate information for helping patients and their carers understand the side effects of chemotherapy and giving patients and their family the opportunity to participate in the decision making of the pathway of care.

The conference will explore, examine and debate the ways in which mobile technology is transforming cancer supportive care (CSC) delivery research, business and policy for the 21st century. You may view the speakers and consult the program by clicking here.