A study using mobile phones to report side effects of chemotherapy (eSMART)

Cancer type:

Blood cancers

Bowel (colorectal) cancer

Breast cancer

Colon cancer

High grade lymphoma

Hodgkin lymphoma

Low grade lymphoma

Lymphoma

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Rectal cancer

Status:

Results

Phase:

Other

This study was done to see if it was helpful for people to report information about side effects using a mobile phone. It was for people having chemotherapy for breast cancer, bowel (colorectal) cancer or lymphoma.

The study was open for people to join between 2016 and 2018. The team published the results in 2021.

More about this trial

Doctors often use chemotherapy to treat cancer. Like all treatments, chemotherapy drugs can cause side effects. These can affect people’s quality of life if they aren’t managed well.

People can often manage side effects themselves at home. But sometimes they need advice from a doctor or nurse in their healthcare team.

In this study, people used a mobile phone at home to report side effects. This is called the advanced symptom management system, or ASyMS.

They answered a short questionnaire and recorded their temperature on the phone. A computer program analysed this information. A member of their health care team then phoned them if necessary.

The main aim of the study was to find out if using the mobile phone was a useful way of managing side effects.

Summary of results

Study design
This study was for people with breast cancer, bowel cancer or lymphoma. They were either having chemotherapy for the first time, or hadn’t had treatment for 5 years.

They were put into a study group at random. Some people used a phone to record information about their side effects. Some people reported their side effects in the usual way (the control group). Each hospital taking part told their patients the best way to do this.

The research team looked at how much impact the side effects had on people’s quality of life. This included things such as:

psychological issues
physical issues
anxiety levels
confidence in doing tasks
work limitations
overall quality of life

Results
A total of 829 people took part in this study. They were from 12 different hospitals in 5 countries.

The people taking part were put into a group at random:

415 people used their mobile phone to manage their side effects
414 people managed their side effects in the usual way

The results showed that the advanced symptom management system (ASyMS) helped people manage side effects of chemotherapy.

The people using the phone to report information about their side effects had less anxiety and distress. And fewer physical and psychological issues.

The team recommend that this system is used for people to report side effects. They suggest it will be especially useful since the Covid 19 pandemic. This is because many hospitals are now doing at least some appointments online.

More detailed information
There is more information about this research in the reference below.

Please note, this article is not in plain English. It has been written for health care professionals and researchers.

Real time remote symptom monitoring during chemotherapy for cancer: European multicentre randomised controlled trial (eSMART)
R Maguire and others
British Medical Journal, 2021. Volume 374, issue 8301, n.1674

Where this information comes from
We have based this summary on the information in the article above. This has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item ) and published in a medical journal. We have not analysed the data ourselves. As far as we are aware, the link we list above is active and the article is free and available to view.