Project description
An innovative solution for treating elderly breast cancer patients at risk for cardiotoxicity
Age-related factors and co-morbidities increase elderly breast cancer patients' vulnerability to cardiotoxicity during cancer treatment. Lack of best practices and frailty bias in these patients, underrepresented in trials, may lead to inappropriate interventions and undertreatment, resulting in poorer outcomes, deterioration of quality of life and increased healthcare costs. The EU-funded CARDIOCARE project will focus on the elderly breast cancer population. Through a holistic approach including eHealth applications, wearable sensors and biomarkers it will enable patients to take part in their care process and enhance their physical and mental health, contributing to an individualised care plan and a psychological adaptation to their disease. CARDIOCARE will enable effective risk stratification, mitigating cardiotoxicity and adverse events, minimising hospitalisation and enhancing quality of life.
Objective
More than 50% of the newly diagnosed breast cancer patients are elderly and particularly susceptible to cardiotoxicity of cancer treatment due to age-related factors and prevalence of multiple co-morbidities. The cumulative effect of risk factors in the elderly patient resembles a “snowball effect”, where baseline age and cancer-related changes are exacerbated by direct therapy-induced cardiotoxicity, resulting to a multi-morbid state and mortality. Frailty and high risk of cardiotoxicity in this group may lead to inappropriate interventions and undertreatment, resulting in poorer outcomes, deterioration of QoL and increased healthcare costs. Considering, that older cancer patients are underrepresented in trials, new interdisciplinary and patient-oriented studies able to provide clinical guidelines and best practices for delivering quality care are needed.
CARDIOCARE will contribute to scale up a better management for the multimorbid elderly breast cancer patients. Innovative eHealth applications, coupled with sensors and wearables, will permit a consistent evaluation of the intrinsic capacity and by combining clinical and biological features, will provide a holistic approach to the management of cancer and his co-morbidities in the elderly population. This will allow the development of quality indicators for effective care pathways and allow a more informed approach to breast cancer patients with multimorbidity, training and education of caregivers and stakeholders to boost effectively elderly breast cancer patients along disease trajectory and cardiotoxicity. eHealth applications will increase the involvement and participation of the patients in their care process and self-management improving adherence to their individualized care plan, and a better psychological adaptation to their disease. Overall, the implementation of a comprehensive model for effective risk stratification will positively impact on QoL, adverse events, hospitalizations, and healthcare.
Fields of science
- medical and health scienceshealth scienceshealth care serviceseHealth
- social sciencessociologydemographymortality
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncologybreast cancer
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
Keywords
Programme(s)
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
45110 Ioannina
Greece