Remote Malnutrition Monitoring After Surgery for Pancreatic Cancer Patients
Abstract
About half of pancreatic cancer patients who receive surgery as part of their treatment are at risk for malnutrition. Malnutrition makes it challenging for pancreatic cancer patients to recover from surgery. Patients with malnutrition often feel worse after surgery, are more likely to come back to the hospital and be readmitted, and have reduced survival. Currently, there are no interventions designed to address malnutrition among pancreatic cancer patients after surgery. There is an urgent need to develop interventions that reduce malnutrition among pancreatic cancer patients after surgery. After surgery, pancreatic cancer patients have trouble with getting proper nutrition. One surgery patient recalled, I felt like I d been hit by a bus. It was quite painful. It took a lot out of me. I lost 25 pounds in two and a half weeks. To get proper nutrition, patients must change how they eat, such as having smaller and more frequent meals and eating more protein. While patients get some help with their diet while they are in the hospital, patients often report not having enough help from their health care team after they leave hospital. As a result, many pancreatic cancer patients feel overwhelmed and uncertain about how to manage their nutrition after surgery. To help pancreatic cancer patients manage nutrition after surgery, our team developed the Support through Remote Observation and Nutrition Guidance (STRONG) intervention. As part of the STRONG intervention, pancreatic cancer patients meet with a dietician, are screened for malnutrition, and receive counseling on how to manage nutrition after surgery. Patients also receive a smartphone app to help them track their nutrition and make sure they are eating enough. Patients without a smartphone are given a tablet so they can still participate. If a patient has a caregiver, the caregiver is trained on how to use the app to assist the patient with tracking their nutrition. We tested out the STRONG intervention in 19 patients in a pilot study. Most patients (80%) attended the dietician visits, used the app to track their nutrition, and were satisfied with the STRONG intervention. These findings suggest our pilot study of the STRONG intervention was successful. The objective of the current proposal is to test out the STRONG intervention in more patients and see how it compares with the care that patients usually receive. First, we will translate the STRONG intervention into Spanish to reach our Cancer Center s growing population of Spanish-speaking patients. This will be important for making sure the STRONG intervention is available to Spanish-speaking patients in the future. Second, we will deliver the STRONG intervention to 40 pancreatic cancer patients and provide usual care to 40 pancreatic cancer patients (the care that patients would normally receive at our Cancer Center). We will use a process called randomization to assign patients to either the intervention group or the usual care group. Randomization means that participants have a 50-50 chance of being assigned to the intervention or control group. Randomization will help ensure that the patients assigned to the intervention and usual care groups are similar. We will collect data on patients participation in the intervention, such as attendance at the dietician visits and use of the app, and their satisfaction with the intervention. We will also collect data on how well patients recover from surgery including whether they develop malnutrition, how well they feel, whether they are readmitted to the hospital, and if they pass away. We will compare outcomes for patients in the intervention group and patients in the usual care group. We will monitor patients for 90 days after surgery, which is a common timeframe for seeing how patients do after surgery. This study addresses the fiscal year 2022 PCARP Focus Area of supportive care interventions, patient-reported outcomes, quality of life,
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 04, 2024
- Source ID
- HT94252310514
Entities
People
- Kea Turner
Organizations
- H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute
- United States Army