Chronodisruption and Ambulatory Circadian Monitoring in Cancer Patients: Beyond the Body Clock

Abstract

Purpose of review: Circadian rhythms impose daily rhythms a remarkable variety of metabolic and physiological functions, such as cell proliferation, inflammation, and DNA damage response. Accumulating epidemiological and genetic evidence indicates that circadian rhythms' disruption may be linked to cancer. The integration of circadian biology into cancer research may offer new options for increasing cancer treatment effectiveness and would encompass the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of this disease.

Recent findings: In recent years, there has been a significant development and use of multi-modal sensors to monitor physical activity, sleep, and circadian rhythms, allowing, for the very first time, scaling accurate sleep monitoring to epidemiological research linking sleep patterns to disease, and wellness applications providing new potential applications. This review highlights the role of circadian clock in tumorigenesis, cancer hallmarks and introduces the state-of-the-art in sleep-monitoring technologies, discussing the eventual application of insights in clinical settings and cancer research.

Keywords: Ambulatory circadian monitoring; Cancer patients; Chronodisruption; Circadian rhythms; Multi-modal sensors; Tumorigenesis.

Fig. 1

Ambulatory circadian monitoring (ACM) for chronodisruption (CD) detection. ACM, thanks to several sensor implementation in wearable devices (i.e., wristwatch-like), combines measurements of (a) endogenous variables, such as distal skin temperature; (b) zeitnehmers, such as motor activity and body position more dependent on willingness; and (c) exogenous synchronizers, such as light exposure and environmental temperature, providing information about lifestyle and the bidirectional crosstalk between internal time and external synchronizers, which is paramount to determine a subject exposure to CD.