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Telemonitoring can not only increase the life expectancy, but also the quality of life of cancer patients. A consortium including the Leuven Cancer Institute and the scale-up Byteflies is setting up a new research project.
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‘The earlier you recognize side effects in cancer treatment, the higher the life expectancy and quality of patients.’ As chairman of the Leuven Cancer Institute, professor Michel Delforge, who specializes in hematology, is joining a consortium with nexuzhealth (platform specialized in patient files), the Wit-Gele Kruis Oost-Vlaanderen, UZ Leuven and the Belgian-American start-up Byteflies to use of medical wearables to increase life expectancy.
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“Cancer is evolving more and more from an acute condition to a chronic disease,” says Delforge. This evolution brings challenges. The oncology department represents about a third of the activities in the university hospital of Leuven. Every day, about two hundred patients pass through the day clinic for check-ups and support measures to cope with the disease. ‘In addition, it is not always easy for people in primary care to know the various side effects’, says Delforge.
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The essence
- Cancer is increasingly evolving from an acute condition to a chronic disease.
- It is important to closely monitor patients during their treatment and to quickly detect possible side effects.
- The start-up Byteflies works together with a consortium including the Leuven Cancer Institute to follow up cancer patients via telemonitoring.
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Enter OncoCare@Home, a new project of the Belgian-American start-up Byteflies with 1 million euros support from the Flemish Agency for Enterprise and Innovation (VLAIO). The company previously made the news with medical wearables that detect heart problems or devices that make it possible to monitor epilepsy patients at home. Byteflies wants to reduce the number of hospitalizations of cancer patients by 10 percent.
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How does that work in practice? ‘Those who have to undergo intensive chemotherapy are at risk of infection,’ says Delforge. ‘Thanks to a smart device that makes independent measurements, you could detect such an infection more quickly.’ But telemonitoring could also help frail, elderly patients.
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‘As a university hospital, we think it is important to participate in these kinds of projects,’ says Delforge. ‘In this way we can scientifically substantiate how a wearable can help in the fight against cancer.’ The project will focus this year on developing the solution and protocols to enter the testing phase in 2023. The team hopes to complete the testing phase by the end of next year. The ambition is to monitor approximately 10,000 patients in Belgium with the OncoCare@Home solution by 2027.
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Byteflies Profile
- Founded by engineers Hans Danneels and Hans De Clercq in 2015
- Well-known investors include Pieterjan Bouten and Louis Jonckheere, the founders of Showpad.
- Revenue: In 2020, Byteflies topped Deloitte’s Fast 50 with growth of 3,000 percent.
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Personalized and preventive
‘We always start from the needs of the patient and the specialist,’ says co-founder and co-CEO Hans De Clercq. ‘In the first instance, we will focus on developing a system tailored to the diverse clinical picture that a cancer patient presents during both the treatment phase and the recovery period.’ Byteflies is looking for a user-friendly solution that will take the form of a smart plaster, which the patient will stick on and with which his values will be monitored 24/7.
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