Remote monitoring of people undergoing treatment for cancer may be especially useful with newer therapies, Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Remote monitoring helps people undergoing treatment for cancer cope better with emerging symptoms, a new study concludes. William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, says this strategy may be even more important as new cancer treatments are developed.

Nelson: One of the things about chemotherapy is we sort of have a good sense when people get into trouble with nausea and vomiting, when people get into trouble with an increased risk for infection. When we look at some of the new immunotherapy agents people can get in trouble with activating the immune system attacking some normal part of the body. They’re a little bit less predictable but it’s very clear if the early symptoms are captured and it prompts an intervention that you can stop this autoimmune attack and not compromise the benefit of the immunotherapies.  :30

Nelson says data from remote monitoring can be integrated into electronic medical records so it is instantly available for care teams to respond. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.