Professor of Vascular Medicine Erik Klok of the LUMC.© Photo by Arno Massee
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Wilfred Simons
Today at 07:00-
Leiden
The LUMC is developing an app that should help doctors in the consulting room to guide patients with cancer in their final phase of life. Central to this is the discussion about the use of medicines to prevent blood clotting and thrombosis. Many cancer patients take it until they die, while they have little benefit from it.
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The initiative for an app that should guide the conversation comes from professor Simon Noble from Cardiff University in Wales. His Leiden lecture on Vascular Medicine Erik Klok joins Noble. Taking medicines to combat thrombosis mainly has side effects in the last phase of life, such as bleeding and, as Klok says, ‘a reduced quality of life’.
Doctors rarely consult with their terminal patients about stopping anti-thrombotic drugs. This is mainly because they find it difficult to start a conversation about that last phase of life. The idea is that a demand-driven app can help to make that end of life a topic for discussion, but also to determine the risk of bleeding and thrombosis. The app can be controlled in such a way that it takes into account gender, religion and tumor type.
The app will be tested over the next two years. Fourteen universities and institutions are participating in this test phase.
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