Primum nihil nocere! This app is intended to limit unnecessary harm to cancer patients. You can now predict the risk of febrile neutropenia after a cycle of chemotherapy in cancer patients with a variety of solid cancers treated both on an inpatient and outpatient basis. In addition, you can get estimates of risk reduction by various prophylaxis measures like different classes of Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factors, antibiotics, or both, in patients with solid cancers that are treated by conventional dose chemotherapy protocols with or without monoclonal antibodies. This app is primarily designed for oncologists, doctors in training and nurses.
The work leading to this application is based on a previous publication (original article at Support Care Cancer. 2015 Jun;23(6):1759-67), and is also subjected to expert review at an international conference (presentation at MASCC, 2018). The multivariate algorithm embedded in this app makes use of data from 4075 cycles of chemotherapy, and 1465 patients, and its primary form has been externally and prospectively validated. The application you are about to be using is valid and precise. When a cut off value of a threshold of 20% regarding the risk of febrile neutropenia is chosen, the sensitivity and specificity of the current model are 80% and 83%. The performance of the model is good with an AUC value of 0.87. As the creators of this application, we believe this application has the potential to save lives and prevent unwanted complications from febrile neutropenia in cancer patients.
This app also decreases the risk of medicolegal problems that may arise from the complications of febrile neutropenia due to chemotherapy administration. So, if your motto is “Primum nihil nocere!”, then this is your app.