ONCOPEDS: A mobile application to improve early diagnosis and timely referral in childhood cancer in a low‐ and middle‐income country—A pilot study

Abstract

Background Diagnosis delay in children and adolescents with cancer is a public health problem in Peru that leads to high rates of advanced disease and mortality. We aimed to assess the implementation feasibility and potential utility of ONCOpeds®, a mobile application that provides consultations with pediatric oncologists, in reducing the latency to diagnosis (LD) and referral time (RT) among children and adolescents in Peru diagnosed with cancer. Material and Methods A prospective pilot study was conducted in the region of Callao between November 2017 and April 2018. Primary and secondary care providers were trained on the use of ONCOpeds in five educational sessions. Patients younger than 18 years who resided in Callao and were diagnosed with cancer at four pediatric cancer units in Lima were analyzed by referral type: ONCOpeds facilitated or conventional. Results ONCOpeds was successfully installed in the smartphones of 78 primary and secondary care providers of Callao. During the study period, 23 new cases of cancer in children and adolescents from the region were diagnosed. Ten patients received ONCOpeds‐facilitated referrals and 13 received conventional referrals. The RT decreased among those who received ONCOpeds‐facilitated referrals by 66% (P = 0.02); however, the LD did not significantly decrease with the use of ONCOpeds. Conclusions The implementation of ONCOpeds was found to be feasible in this pilot study, having a potential utility in improving early diagnosis and referral in children and adolescents newly diagnosed with cancer. Directions for future research include multicenter studies with a larger population to further test the application's effectiveness.

Telemedicine in Peru as a Result of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspective from a Country with Limited Internet Access

“…87 The remote management of oncological patients was first assessed on 2018 in a pilot study with the mobile app ONCOpeds, which reported that use of the app improved diagnosis and referral time in pediatric cancer patients. 88 However, this app remained as a pilot and was never launch to the general public. Another important application of telemedicine in Peru has been the monitoring of tuberculosis cases.…”

Primary health care as a tool to promote equity and sustainability; a review of Latin American and Caribbean literature

“…Reputation incentives contribute in the same way, particularly when information on the performance of professionals is published [ 6 ]. In turn, the incorporation of technologies has proven to be useful to facilitate learning, cooperation, better promotion and monitoring procedures, especially in rural setups, constituting a complement to care at the first level [ 52 , 70 , 75 , 88 , 93 , 99 , 141 , 143 ].…”

Pediatric neuro-oncology in Latin America and the Caribbean: a gap to be filled

“…In Peru there is a mobile application, called ONCOPEDS, that aims to facilitate early diagnosis and education not only to health care providers, but parents and teachers. ONCOPEDS has promising results so far improving the referral time and education in Peru ( 44 ).…”