JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a serious side effect of cancer and its treatment that can disrupt the quality of life of the patients. Clinically, the standard method for assessing CRF relies on the subjective experience retrieved from patient self-reports such as Brief Fatigue Inventory (BFI). However, most patients do not self-report their fatigue level.

Objective:

We developed an objective CRF assessment method to track and monitor the fatigue of patients with cancer.

Methods:

In total, 12 patients with lung cancer who were undergoing chemotherapy or target therapy were enrolled. We developed frequency-domain parameters of heart rate variability (HRV) and BFI based on a wearable-based HRV measurement system. All patients completed the BFI-Taiwan version questionnaire, and wore the device for 7 consecutive days to record HRV parameters such as low frequency (LF), high frequency (HF), and LF/HF ratio (LF/HF). Statistical analysis was used to map the correlation between subjective fatigue and objective data.

Results:

A moderate positive correlation was observed between the average LF/HF and BFI in the sleep phase ( = 0.86). The mapped BFI (MBFI) score derived by BFI mapping method could approximate the BFI from patient self-report. The mean absolute error rate between subjective BFI and objective MBFI score was 3%.

Conclusions:

LF/HF is highly correlated to CRF experienced by patients with lung cancer undergoing chemotherapy or target therapy. The HRV-measuring device is highly reliable and feasible for qualitative and quantitative measurement of fatigue.