The project will provide patients with digital tools, including a multi sensor smartwatch, remote ultrasound patch, and AI algorithms for continuous monitoring of pain and sarcopenia, to enable them to self-manage their disease and communicate with their doctors.

Project description

Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival rate amongst other cancers and is responsible for 95,000 deaths every year in the EU. Its treatment is usually palliative, aiming at slowing tumour progression and at symptom management. The main hypothesis of RELEVIUM is that quality of life (QoL) of advanced pancreatic cancer patients can be significantly improved by reducing pain and cachexia through highly personalised nutrition, physical activity, and pain management strategies, in addition to chemotherapy treatment. To achieve this, RELEVIUM will empower patients with digital tools that facilitate patient-doctor communication and enable them to self-manage their disease.

RELEVIUM will use

• a multi-sensor smartwatch and an innovative remote ultrasound patch
• AI algorithms for continuous remote monitoring of pain and sarcopenia, as well as for decision support
• patient and caregiver applications.

Combined, these tools will provide a stream of evidence on symptom progression and will enable physicians to apply personalised care plans. RELEVIUM brings together an interdisciplinary team of experts and will also involve patients and their caregivers in an iterative co-creation process.

The project will initially conduct a feasibility and data collection study (RELEVIUM-FDC, n=130). The study aims at optimizing patient adherence and compliance, and at collecting data for the development of the intervention. A five-centre randomized clinical trial (RELEVIUM-RCT) will then evaluate the efficacy of the proposed personalised care plans for advanced pancreatic cancer patients (n=132) in terms of their QoL. Several secondary outcomes will be investigated, such as the cost-effectiveness of the intervention, its potential in increasing health equity and in relieving the stress burden on the patient families.

The study outcomes will result in recommendations for integrating remote monitoring and improving QoL outcomes in palliative care for advanced pancreatic cancer.