Application of Clinical Decision Support System to Assist Breast Cancer Patients with Lifestyle Modifications during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Abstract

Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) are data aggregation tools based on computer technology that assist clinicians to promote healthy weight management and prevention of cardiovascular diseases. We carried out a randomised controlled 3-month trial to implement lifestyle modifications in breast cancer (BC) patients by means of CDSS during the COVID-19 pandemic. In total, 55 BC women at stages I-IIIA were enrolled. They were randomly assigned either to Control group, receiving general lifestyle advice (n = 28) or the CDSS group (n = 27), to whom the CDSS provided personalised dietary plans based on the Mediterranean diet (MD) together with physical activity guidelines. Food data, anthropometry, blood markers and quality of life were evaluated. At 3 months, higher adherence to MD was recorded in the CDSS group, accompanied by lower body weight (kg) and body fat mass percentage compared to control (p < 0.001). In the CDSS arm, global health/quality of life was significantly improved at the trial endpoint (p < 0.05). Fasting blood glucose and lipid levels (i.e., cholesterol, LDL, triacylglycerols) of the CDSS arm remained unchanged (p > 0.05) but were elevated in the control arm at 3 months (p < 0.05). In conclusion, CDSS could be a promising tool to assist BC patients with lifestyle modifications during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The effect of decision support systems on pain in patients with cancer: A systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials

“…The studies included in the meta-analysis had a total of 1.880 participants. Four of the studies reviewed were conducted in the United States (Basch et al, 2016;Berry et al, 2011;Mooney et al, 2017;Ruland et al, 2003) and one in Greece (Papandreou et al, 2021) et al, 2003). While various types of cancer were included in three studies (Basch et al, 2016;Berry et al, 2011;Mooney et al, 2017),…”

“…it was stated in one study that only breast cancer patients were present (Papandreou et al, 2021). When the ethnicity of the patients included in the studies were examined: not specified in two studies (Basch et al, 2016;Ruland et al, 2003), Hispanic/Latino in one study (Berry et al, 2011), non-Hispanic/Hispanic in one study (Mooney et al, 2017), and Greek in one study (Papandreou et al, 2021).…”

“…[STAR] in one study (Basch et al, 2016), and DSSs in two studies (Mooney et al, 2017;Papandreou et al, 2021). When DSSs were examined in terms of tool type, two of the studies were used as standalone (Berry et al, 2011;Ruland et al, 2003), two of them were EHR integrated (Mooney et al, 2017;Papandreou et al, 2021), and one study was Internet-based (Basch et al, 2016).…”

“…Only one study was considered low risk because of clear information that the data scientist was blinded during analysis until researchers were assigned to treatment (Papandreou et al, 2021). In addition, all studies included were considered as low risk due to the measurement of results and the use of appropriate analyses in the selection of the reported results.…”

Repercussão da qualidade de vida de mulheres com câncer de mama durante a pandemia da COVID-19

“…No câncer de mama as mulheres ficam com mais aflição, pois as mesmas já possuem a condição emocional vulnerável devido o quadro patológico, devido as reações do tratamento e por ferir seus aspetos de feminilidade (Papandreou et al, 2021). Dessa forma, pode gerar medo da evolução do quadro patológico devido às interrupções gerado devido o isolamento da pandemia da COVID-19 e medo de transmissão do vírus (Guven et al, 2020;Stefan et al 2021).…”