Consumer Wearables and the Integration of New Objective Measures in Oncology: Patient and Provider Perspectives

Abstract

With one in five adults in the United States owning a smartwatch or fitness tracker, these devices are poised to impact all aspects of medicine by offering a more objective approach to replace self-reported data. Oncology has proved to be a prototypical example, and wearables offer immediate benefits to patients and oncologists with the ability to track symptoms and health metrics in real time. We aimed to review the recent literature on consumer-grade wearables and its current applications in cancer from the perspective of both the patient and the provider. The relevant studies suggested that these devices offer benefits, such as improved medication adherence and accuracy of symptom tracking over self-reported data, as well as insights that increase patient empowerment. Physical activity is consistently correlated with stronger patient outcomes, and a patient’s real-time metrics were found to be capable of tracking medication side effects and toxicity. Studies have made associations between wearable data and telomere shortening, cardiovascular disease, alcohol consumption, sleep apnea, and other conditions. The objective data obtained by the wearable presents a more complete picture of an individual’s health than the snapshot of a 15-minute office visit and a single set of vital signs. Real-time metrics can be translated into a digital phenotype that identifies risk factors specific to each patient, and shared risk factors across one’s social network may uncover common environmental exposures detrimental to one’s health. Wearable data and its upcoming integration with social media will be the foundation for the next generation of personalized medicine.

Feasibility of Using Wearables for Home Monitoring during Radiotherapy for Head and Neck Cancer—Results from the OncoWatch 1.0 Study

“…One type is Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO), which provide information about a patient's subjective symptoms and can be used for symptom monitoring or quality-of-life assessments [5]. Another type of PGHD is biometric sensor data, which can be collected with noninvasive wearables such as a smartwatch or an activity tracker [8,9]. Although consumer wearables are becoming more common in the general population, their use in a healthcare setting is still at an early stage [8,10].…”

“…Another type of PGHD is biometric sensor data, which can be collected with noninvasive wearables such as a smartwatch or an activity tracker [8,9]. Although consumer wearables are becoming more common in the general population, their use in a healthcare setting is still at an early stage [8,10]. Most studies using wearable technology in oncology have used wrist-worn wearables mainly to monitor physical activity [10].…”

Iowa Newborn Screening Program Experience with Hemoglobinopathy Screening over the Last Two Decades and Its Increasing Global Relevance

“…The individual datum collected from the user provides patients and clinicians with insights into a patient’s daily symptoms and reactions to treatment regimens and allows for individualized suggestions around diet and activity. Oncologists have even used chemoWave to help find the best time for a patient’s next chemotherapy cycle [ 37 ]. Although there are many apps for various chronic diseases that enable patient interaction, there are very few apps made for thalassemia.…”

Cardiorespiratory Assessments in Panic Disorder Facilitated by Wearable Devices: A Systematic Review and Brief Comparison of the Wearable Zephyr BioPatch with the Quark-b2 Stationary Testing System

“…These types of consumer-graded wearable are commonly used for non-clinical purposes, as fitness trackers during exercise-training programs. Although their application for clinical and research purposes in the medical field is increasing [ 60 , 61 ], the reliability of consumer wearables for fine-grained analyses on cardiac-activity recordings under different daily-life conditions is unclear. When compared to a reference-standard chest-strapped monitor during a series of sedentary and moderate physical activities in the laboratory, HR detection based on the Garmin Vivosmart wrist-worn optical HR sensors (PPG) was found to underestimate the average HR and produced some unexpected outlier readings, despite a generally acceptable accuracy [ 62 ].…”