Reminders sent through Short Messaging Service (SMS) to oral cancers patients to carry out mouth self-examination have been found to be useful, according to doctors at Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel.
The inexpensive initiative involves healthcare providers sending text messages to patients asking them if they have observed any ulcer, patch or swelling inside their mouth. The initiative was found to have improved patients’ motivation and self-examination rate. The patients’ observation also matched with the doctor’s assessment in a majority of cases.
The study, which was published in the South Asian Journal of Cancer last month, had surveyed 206 patients, who underwent oral cancer surgery at the Tata Memorial Hospital. Before being discharged, the patients were educated on how to carry out a self-examination. They were asked to look into a mirror or ask a relative to look for signs of a relapse. They were also told about the SMS reminders and how to reply to them.
“Self-examination in three type of cancers can be done easily. Oral cancer is one of them. The other two are breast cancer and skin cancer,” said Dr. Pankaj Chaturvedi, head and neck surgeon and one of the authors of the study. “For mouth self-examination, one has to simply look for signs of abnormality,” said Dr. Chaturvedi.
Of the 206 patients surveyed, 73.6% responded to the message sent by the health care provider. The text read: “Examine your mouth daily. Have you noticed any ulcer/patch/swelling in your mouth? If no, reply N. If yes, reply Y.” The message was sent one week before the scheduled hospital follow-up visit.
A total of 82% respondents said they observed no signs of the disease and were accurate in their observation. During their medical examination a week later, they were not found to no relapse or signs of new disease. Similarly, three patients who had replied with a ‘Y ‘ were reported to have the disease after clinical examination.
Dr. Chaturvedi said the idea was to understand if the follow-up visits can be reduced post treatment. “Most patients travel from other States for the follow-up, which lasts for less than five minutes,” said Dr. Chaturvedi. He said a model could be developed based on the study to benefit more patients.
He said, “Through this method, we can empower patients to regularly examine themselves. Often, we see white and red lesions in patients’ mouths. These are pre-cancerous signs but may take months or years to develop into a cancer.”
Published - January 10, 2018 12:38 am IST
