SenseCheQ: Community-based sensory testing for early identification of Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy.

SenseCheQ：基于社区的感觉测试，用于早期识别化疗引起的周围神经病变。

• 批准号: MR/W027925/1
• 负责人: Anthony Pickering
• 金额: $ 85.77万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2022 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=MR%2FW027925%2F1
• 关键词: SenseCheQ; Community; based; sensory; testing

Chemotherapy is an important treatment for cancer. Unfortunately, it also causes side effects, including chronic pain and changes in the sense of touch. This is due to nerve damage. In up to 1 in 3 people, these changes last longer than 6 months, causing misery, disability and adding to the burden of cancer survivorship. These changes are vague to begin with, yet early detection is important, as reducing the chemotherapy dose is the only way to reduce the severity of symptoms. Reducing the dose, however, must be balanced against the possible risk of the treatment being less successful. This highlights how important it is to detect these signs early and accurately. One way of detecting these changes is with careful testing of the skin's senses. This is achieved by asking patients when they feel small changes in temperature or vibrations and then comparing that to readings taken before chemotherapy was started. Such tests are well known in the pain research community where they are called Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST). Frustratingly, QST takes a long time to perform, is expensive and needs the patients to keep coming into clinic during a very vulnerable time in their cancer treatment. These issues mean that this formal QST is not suitable for routine clinical use.Our team of patients, pain doctors and engineers believe that we can deliver a simple, cheap and effective sense testing kit, that we are calling SenseCheQ. This will enable patients to check the health of their nerves, at home, during their chemotherapy. We will design SenseCHeQ to be sensitive enough to detect early changes, potentially before the patient notices any symptoms, to enable personalised treatments that will maximise the success of cancer treatment, whilst minimising the risk of chronic pain and loss of sensation. To deliver SenseCheQ we need to complete four complementary workplans. Workplan 1 (UK wide) will be led and driven by patient partners to ensure that SenseCHeQ is user friendly and meets the needs of patients. This workplan will also feed into the remaining workplans to ensure that patients remain at the centre of our focus. Workplan 2 (Newcastle) will engineer solutions, by identifying and integrating off-the-shelf components into suitable 'wearables' and providing power and communications.Workplan 3 (Bristol) will test these solutions in healthy volunteers. Initially, individual components will be tested alone and compared to commonly used sensory testing equipment. As designs progress, through testing and re-design cycles working closely with WP1 and WP2, this workplan will move to validating early SenseCHeQ versions in models of nerve damage, which will cause temporary numbness or pain, again in healthy volunteers. Workplan 4 (Dundee) will perform a feasibility study in patients. Workplan 4 will synergise with PAINSTORM, another Versus/MRC advanced pain discovery platform program of work that is seeking to harmonise assessment of pain caused by nerve damage, not just damage caused by chemotherapy. PAINSTORM are funded to perform QST on patients as they move through their chemotherapy. We will ask some of these patients to use SenseCHeQ at home at the same time. We will be most interested in how patients get on with the device - is it easy to use? Robust? We will also compare SenseCHeQ to the QST results to estimate its ability to detect early neuropathy. If successful, we will apply for further funding to confirm these findings and thus move SenseCHeQ towards a clinically useful tool empowering patients to monitor their own nerve health, at home, minimise their risks of developing chronic pain and numbness and enabling delivery of truly personalised cancer treatment.

化疗是癌症的重要治疗方法。不幸的是，它也会引起副作用，包括慢性疼痛和触觉变化。这是由于神经损伤造成的。在多达三分之一的人中，这些变化持续时间超过 6 个月，造成痛苦、残疾并增加癌症生存的负担。这些变化一开始是模糊的，但早期发现很重要，因为减少化疗剂量是减轻症状严重程度的唯一方法。然而，减少剂量必须与治疗不太成功的可能风险相平衡。这凸显了尽早准确地发现这些迹象的重要性。检测这些变化的一种方法是仔细测试皮肤的感官。这是通过询问患者何时感受到温度或振动的微小变化，然后将其与化疗开始前的读数进行比较来实现的。此类测试在疼痛研究界众所周知，被称为定量感官测试（QST）。令人沮丧的是，QST 需要很长时间才能进行，费用昂贵，并且需要患者在癌症治疗的非常脆弱的时期继续前往诊所。这些问题意味着这种正式的 QST 不适合常规临床使用。我们的患者、疼痛医生和工程师团队相信我们可以提供一种简单、廉价且有效的感官测试套件，我们称之为 SenseCheQ。这将使患者能够在化疗期间在家中检查神经的健康状况。我们将把 SenseCHeQ 设计得足够灵敏，能够在患者注意到任何症状之前检测出早期变化，从而实现个性化治疗，从而最大限度地提高癌症治疗的成功率，同时最大限度地降低慢性疼痛和感觉丧失的风险。为了交付 SenseCheQ，我们需要完成四个补充工作计划。工作计划 1（英国范围内）将由患者合作伙伴领导和推动，以确保 SenseCHeQ 用户友好并满足患者的需求。该工作计划还将纳入其余工作计划，以确保患者始终处于我们关注的中心。工作计划 2（纽卡斯尔）将通过识别现成组件并将其集成到合适的“可穿戴设备”中并提供电源和通信来设计解决方案。工作计划 3（布里斯托尔）将在健康志愿者中测试这些解决方案。最初，将单独测试各个组件并与常用的感官测试设备进行比较。随着设计的进展，通过与 WP1 和 WP2 密切合作的测试和重新设计周期，该工作计划将转向在神经损伤模型中验证早期的 SenseCHeQ 版本，这将再次在健康志愿者中引起暂时的麻木或疼痛。工作计划 4（邓迪）将对患者进行可行性研究。工作计划 4 将与 PAINSTORM 协同作用，PAINSTORM 是 Versus/MRC 的另一个高级疼痛发现平台工作计划，旨在协调对神经损伤引起的疼痛的评估，而不仅仅是化疗引起的损伤。 PAINSTORM 获得资助，在患者接受化疗时对其进行 QST。我们会要求其中一些患者同时在家使用 SenseCHeQ。我们最感兴趣的是患者如何使用该设备——它是否易于使用？强壮的？我们还将 SenseCHeQ 与 QST 结果进行比较，以估计其检测早期神经病变的能力。如果成功，我们将申请进一步的资金来证实这些发现，从而将 SenseCHeQ 推向临床有用的工具，使患者能够在家监测自己的神经健康状况，最大限度地降低患慢性疼痛和麻木的风险，并实现真正个性化的癌症治疗治疗。