Recently, a woman with advanced colorectal cancer at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, was taking capecitabine (Xeloda) in the morning but skipping her evening dose.
Proteus Digital Health
The Proteus patch is waterproof and meant to be worn for a week and then replaced.
Her hands hurt, and she couldn’t open the childproof cap. Her daughter had been doing it for her in the morning but wasn’t around to help out at night.
It was the kind of problem that might have gone on for days or weeks until the next clinic visit, and, even then, be addressed only if the woman remembered to mention it.
But that’s not what happened. The care team realized pretty much right away that she was skipping the p.m. dose because the woman was taking her capecitabine in a gel cap with an adherence sensor.
The sensor, a sandwich of copper, silicon, and magnesium in a millimeter square, sent out an electric ping when she took her dose, activated by stomach acid; the ping was picked up by an adhesive bandage patch the woman wore, which relayed the signal to an app on her smartphone; the phone passed it on to a server cloud that the woman had given her providers permission to access.
They monitored her adherence on a Web portal, along with heart rate and activity data, also captured by the patch. The system is called Proteus Discover, from Proteus Digital Health.
Instead of taking days or weeks, the care team quickly realized that she wasn’t taking her evening dose of capecitabine. They contacted her, replaced the childproof cap, and twice-daily dosing resumed.
Expanded use in oncology?
Seven other advanced colorectal cancer patients have participated in the University of Minnesota (UM) pilot project, the first use of the device in oncology. “It’s gone so well that it’s annoying to me to not have this for all my patients. I’m already feeling frustrated that I can’t just put this in all the drugs that I give orally,” said Edward Greeno, MD, an oncologist/hematologist at the university, and the Proteus point man.
Proteus Digital Health
Dr. Edward Greeno
“You would assume that cancer patients would be hypercompliant, but it turns out they have the same compliance problems” as other patients, plus additional hurdles, he said, including complex regimens and drug toxicity.
“Every patient we have approached so far has been enthusiastic. They might be a little bit annoyed that I know they haven’t been taking their pills, but they are also glad that I am there to hold them responsible and help them. My intention is to roll this out much more broadly,” he said. That just might happen. Dr. Greeno is working with Proteus to roll the sensor out at UM and oncology programs elsewhere.
A slow, careful rollout
The device was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in 2012. After more than 180,000 ingestions, there have been no safety issues, besides occasional skin irritation from the patch, which is waterproof and meant to be worn for a week, then replaced. It pings if it’s taken off. The sensor is passes through the body like food.