Personalized Cancer Screening: Chances (Part 2)

What are the chances of having a personalized cancer screening plan with active monitoring?

The general approach of cancer screening is for people where the risk of cancer is high enough to justify the risk of overdiagnosis and overtreatment compared to the benefit of an individual, when catching cancer in an early stage. Within the German Public Health Insurance age is the main indicator for selecting screenings, as with growing age the risk of cancer is rising within the average healthy population.[1]

This screening model without risk assessment has its advantage:

• Standardized approach with low clinical management efforts for screening selection
• Uniform information campaigns can support this screening model and raise public awareness
• Streamlined and efficient screening process due to large scale organized screening campaigns
• Reduced complexity because of no personalized risk assessment

But what if we say, these advantages can even be applied to a screening model with risk assessment?

In this article we’d like to throw some ideas into the room, which are outlining the meaning and chances we can have with our software platform for individual, risk-adapted screening plans for our patients.

• We can keep the clinical management efforts low, with a smooth integration of our platform into a clinics' electronic health record system, where the only additional input is a questionnaire filled out by a patient
• We can build on existing information campaigns, which already informed the majority of our population about the offer and concept of screening models in Germany
• With digital, streamlined workflows regarding risk assessment, we can apply risk assessment even within large scale screening campaigns
• The complexity of personalized risk assessment is handled by our platform

Of course developing and applying those advantages to reality come with challenges, which we will address in another article.

Continuity of going regularly to screenings

As in daily life, going to screenings can come with some obstacles, as mentioned in our first article: scheduling appointments, finding time, costs and the fear of potential findings.

We want to target those points directly, where our platform provides patients with features for scheduling, reminder and notification, so that prevention becomes not a load on top of daily life but seemlessly blend in. Furthermore, extensive and comprehensive information material to empower patients for making an informed decision regarding screenings will be provided for each cancer type and screening procedure.

Important for us is the availablitiy of professionals to speak with patients, therefore our platform will be supplemented by patient coordinators and specialized physicians so that patients have a personal contact and know, that someone keeps track of their health.

For us at Curie Science Center, a very important part of a personalized, risk-adapted cancer screening program is not only the medical algorithm behind it, but also to ensure that the continuity of going regularly and in time to their screenings is given. The planning of screenings is based on intervals, and medicine unfortunately can not give us enough knowledge yet, to know when cancer develops. So the correct selection of the intervals covers this part.

A look into the future: Reducing the amount of screenings for low-risk patients

Imagine a future where our algorithm evolves to a point where it can not only identify individuals with elevated risk but also those with reduced risk, making certain screenings unnecessary. This innovative approach carries immense potential, like:

• Enhanced quality of care due to risk assessment and personalized medicine
• Reduced financial burden of an individual and state system due to decreased number of screenings for low-risk individuals
• Optimization of medical resource usage, where our overloaded healthcare facilities can concentrate their efforts and resource on those who need attention

Stay tuned for our next post in this series, where we'll look at a case study to see the difference and medical benefits of a screening approach with and without personalization.

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Sources:

[1] Cancer Screening and Early Detection in the 21st Century; Loud JT et al. (2017)