Asyms©-serat

Patients undergoing chemotherapy want specific information on potential toxicities of their treatment. Such information includes what side-effects they are likely to experience, how severe these side-effects will be, how long they will experience them for, and the best ways of managing them. As well as improving the experiences; of patients, information about potential side-effects may also be of significant benefit clinically,as patients who are 'at risk' of developing certain toxicities may be identified, facilitating more targeted,cost-effective interventions. This paper describes research that uses risk-modelling techniques for identifying patterns in patient side-effect data to aid in predicting side-effects patients are likely to experience. Through analysis of patient data, a patient can receive information specific to the symptoms they are likely to experience. A user-friendly software tool ASyMS©-SERAT (Advanced Symptom Management System-Side-Effect Risk Assessment Tool) has been developed, which presents side-effect information to the patients both at the start of treatment and reviews and monitors predictions with each new cycle of chemotherapy received.