Modern technologies for remote monitoring of cancer patients: advances, opportunities, and prospects (a literature review)

Remote monitoring (RM) of patients involves the continuous or periodic monitoring of a patient’s condition outside the hospital, utilizing modern digital and telecommunication technologies. RM is actively integrated into oncology practice. Modern medical systems offer several basic methods of RM. Modern RM systems enable the real-time recording of various clinically significant complications, automatically notifying medical personnel of critical changes to promptly adjust therapy and reduce the need for emergency medical care. The purpose of the paper is to review the literature data on RM in patients with malignancies. We reviewed publications in the leading scientific databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, and the National Library of Medicine) over the past decade. Data on the most common commercial and applied systems with effectiveness confirmed in several studies and described in open sources are summarized. The characteristics of the included studies – follow-up periods, methods of data collection and analysis, as well as the organization of interaction between doctors and patients – differed significantly, covering periods from 3 to 12 months. The use of Navigating Cancer, ОНКОНЕТ, eRAPID, SCH, Kaiku Health, and other platforms reduced the rate of unscheduled hospitalizations from 32.5% to 20.0% (relative reduction ~38%) and increased patient adherence to therapy to 73–79% (and up to ~92% in the PRO-TECT protocol). According to Kaiku Health, the average response time of the doctor to an alarming event was 19.6 hours. The Russian ONCONET study noted a decrease in the incidence of complications of antitumor treatment, as well as the risk of postponing the dates of the next course of chemotherapy, which significantly improved patient survival. Symptom Care at HOME (PRO-TECT) automated data collection systems significantly improved symptom control and quality of life scores. RM technologies demonstrate convincing efficacy, reducing the need for emergency medical care, improving the control of complications, and, according to some studies, are associated with an increase in the overall survival of cancer patients. Their widespread introduction into the oncological care system is justified, provided that the standardized notification protocols, sustainable funding, and organizational support are available. However, the systematization of the available data presents a significant methodological challenge due to the lack of unified approaches in implementing RM projects, the heterogeneity of methods for assessing effectiveness, and the wide range of conditions and organizational models studied.