Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Feb;27(2):181.e1-181.e9.
doi: 10.1016/j.jtct.2020.10.017. Epub 2020 Dec 13.

Assessing the Feasibility of a Novel mHealth App in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Patients

Alessandro Racioppi  1 , Tara Dalton  2 , Sendhilnathan Ramalingam  3 , Kristi Romero  4 , Yi Ren  5 , Lauren Bohannon  3 , Consuelo Arellano  6 , Jude Jonassaint  7 , Hilary Miller  3 , Ian Barak  5 , Laura J Fish  8 , Taewoong Choi  3 , Cristina Gasparetto  3 , Gwynn D Long  3 , Richard D Lopez  3 , David A Rizzieri  3 , Stefanie Sarantopoulos  3 , Mitchell E Horwitz  3 , Nelson J Chao  3 , Nirmish R Shah  5 , Anthony D Sung  9
Affiliations

Assessing the Feasibility of a Novel mHealth App in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Patients

Alessandro Racioppi et al. Transplant Cell Ther. 2021 Feb.

Abstract

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) is a curative treatment option for patients with hematologic conditions but presents many complications that must be managed as a complex, chronic condition. Mobile health applications (mHealth apps) may permit tracking of symptoms in HCT. In seeking strategies to manage the complexities of HCT, our team collaborated with Sicklesoft, Inc., to develop an mHealth app specifically for HCT patients to allow for daily evaluation of patient health, Technology Recordings to better Understand Bone Marrow Transplantation (TRU-BMT). The primary value of this application is that of potentially enhancing the monitoring of symptoms and general health of patients undergoing HCT, with the ultimate goal of allowing earlier detection of adverse events, earlier intervention, and improving outcomes. To first evaluate patient interest in mHealth apps, we designed and administered an interest survey to patients at the 2017 BMT-InfoNet reunion. As a follow-up to the positive feedback received, we began testing the TRU-BMT app in a Phase 1 pilot study. Thirty patients were enrolled in this single-arm study and were given the TRU-BMT mHealth app on a smartphone device in addition to a wearable activity tracker. Patients were followed for up to 180 days, all the while receiving daily app monitoring. Adherence to TRU-BMT was approximately 30% daily and 44% weekly, and greater adherence was associated with increased meal completion, decreased heart rate, and shorter hospital stay. TRU-BMT assessments of symptom severity were significantly associated with duration of hospital stay and development of chronic graft-versus-host disease. Our findings suggest that using TRU-BMT throughout HCT is feasible for patients and established a proof-of-concept for a future randomized control trial of the TRU-BMT application in HCT. © 2021 American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Activity tracking; Mobile health application; Self-management; Stem cell transplantation; Symptom monitoring; mHealth.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: Jude Jonassaint is an officer of Sicklesoft.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Screen shots of TRU-BMT demonstrating the general health feature, weekly score card, and stool count tool.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Patient daily utilization (bars) and adherence to TRU-BMT up to Day 100 by participant.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Arnaout K, Patel N, Jain M, El-Amm J, Amro F, Tabbara IA. Complications of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Cancer Invest. 2014;32:349–362. - PubMed
    1. Rimkus C Acute complications of stem cell transplant. Semin Oncol Nurs. 2009;25:129–138. - PubMed
    1. Bayraktar UD, Shpall EJ, Liu P, et al. Hematopoietic cell transplantation-specific comorbidity index predicts inpatient mortality and survival in patients who received allogeneic transplantation admitted to the intensive care unit. J Clin Oncol. 2013;31:4207–4214. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Appelbaum FR, Forman SJ, Negrin RS, Antin JH. Thomas' hematopoietic cell transplantation : stem cell transplantation. Fifth edition. ed:1 online resource.
    1. Anderson KO, Giralt SA, Mendoza TR, et al. Symptom burden in patients undergoing autologous stem-cell transplantation. Bone Marrow Transplant. 2007;39:759–766. - PubMed

Publication types