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Cited by 120Mobile Health and mHealth ApplicationsCancer survivorship and careContext-Aware Activity Recognition Systems

Harnessing consumer smartphone and wearable sensors for clinical cancer research

Open access
Low, Carissa A.·2020·npj Digital Medicine
DOI 10.1038/s41746-020-00351-xPMC PMC7591557
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Abstract

As smartphones and consumer wearable devices become more ubiquitous, there is a growing opportunity to capture rich mobile sensor data continuously, passively, and in real-world settings with minimal burden. In the context of cancer, changes in these passively sensed digital biomarkers may reflect meaningful variation in functional status, symptom burden, quality of life, and risk for adverse clinical outcomes. These data could enable real-time remote monitoring of patients between clinical encounters and more proactive, comprehensive, and personalized care. Over the past few years, small studies across a variety of cancer populations support the feasibility and potential clinical value of mobile sensors in oncology. Barriers to implementing mobile sensing in clinical oncology care include the challenges of managing and making sense of continuous sensor data, patient engagement issues, difficulty integrating sensor data into existing electronic health systems and clinical workflows, and ethical and privacy concerns. Multidisciplinary collaboration is needed to develop mobile sensing frameworks that overcome these barriers and that can be implemented at large-scale for remote monitoring of deteriorating health during or after cancer treatment or for promotion and tailoring of lifestyle or symptom management interventions. Leveraging digital technology has the potential to enrich scientific understanding of how cancer and its treatment affect patient lives, to use this understanding to offer more timely and personalized support to patients, and to improve clinical oncology outcomes.

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Low, C. A.
Affiliations
University of Pittsburgh (US)
Corresponding author
Low, Carissa A.
ORCID
Low, Carissa A.
Venue
npj Digital Medicine
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2020-10-27
Volume
3
Issue
1
Pages
140-140
ISSN
2398-6352 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1038/s41746-020-00351-x
PMC
PMC7591557
OpenAlex
W3097651466
Cited by
120
References
8
Citations by year
2026: 13 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 22 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 14
FWCI
2.81
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • npj Digital Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Cancer Institute (K07CA204380 and R37CA242545)
  • Hillman Fellows for Innovative Cancer Research Program funded by the Henry L. Hillman Foundation
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Mobile Health and mHealth Applications
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer survivorship and care
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Context-Aware Activity Recognition Systems
Keywords
smartphone sensors, wearable sensors, digital biomarkers, cancer, remote patient monitoring, symptom burden, quality of life, patient engagement, privacy and ethics, precision oncology

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