VALENCIA, May 6. (EUROPA PRESS) –
A team from the ITACA Institute of the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) has developed the Lalaby application to help improve the well-being of patients with glioblastoma. Among its functionalities, it allows real-time monitoring of the quality of life of users, both patients and non-patients, through the automatic collection of their ‘Digital Phenotype’ through their mobile devices and the application of personalized questionnaires.
The professor and researcher of the BSDLab group of the ITACA-UPV Institute participating in the project, Sabina Asensio-Cuesta, has stressed that this update “represents a significant advance in personalized medical care and the quality of life of glioblastoma patients, the type most common and aggressive brain tumor in adults.
Among the new features, in addition to a new “optimistic and vital” image, stands out a questionnaire specifically designed to evaluate the quality of life of patients with glioblastoma, as indicated by the UPV in a statement.
This information, along with information collected by the app automatically, such as distance traveled, amount of movement, steps, light level, number of calls, amount of data used, and sound level and frequency, allow define the so-called ‘Digital Phenotype’ of the patient. This phenotype can be displayed graphically in an online dashboard that integrates the app, providing a more complete and accessible perspective for doctors and patients.
This work is part of the project ‘Monitoring the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients with glioblastoma using smartphones to support treatment decision-making’ (CIAICO/2022/064), funded by the Generalitat Valenciana, and is being carried out by UPV researchers, Sabina Asensio-Cuesta (IP), Elies Fuster-García (IP), Juan M. García-Gómez, Ángel Sánchez García and Daniel Sánchez García.
The project is developed in collaboration with the oncologists from the Doctor Peset University Hospital in València (Fisabio Foundation), Inmaculada Maestu Maiques, Teresa Soria Comes and Maria De Julian Campayo, and the oncologist Jorge Soler, from the Castellón Provincial Hospital.
In this sense, the real-time monitoring capacity offers the opportunity to identify changes or trends in patients’ quality of life early, “which allows for faster and more effective intervention by health professionals, as well as to optimize their treatments, thus marking an important milestone in the fight against glioblastoma and other similar diseases,” the UPV research institute highlights.
Currently, the application is being used in a study with 20 patients with glioblastoma in collaboration with the Doctor Peset University Hospital and the Castellón Provincial Hospital. Likewise, it is being applied in a study with 50 patients with lung cancer from the Doctor Peset University Hospital, in a collaboration agreement between the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and the Fisabio Foundation.
The ITACA-UPV Biomedical Data Science Laboratory (BDSLab) is a multidisciplinary research group made up of 20 researchers committed to the development of technology based on data science and artificial intelligence for real health problems.
Its know-how covers machine learning, predictive modeling, data quality and variability, multiparametric tissue signatures, decision support systems and medical imaging. In fact, participation in projects and contracts has allowed them to develop more than a dozen scientific software that helps improve medical care and clinical decision making.