A small study that looked at data from patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) found that step counts seem to predict prognosis.
How active patients were and — more importantly — how inactive they were before receiving chemoradiation showed an association with how well they tolerated and responded to treatment, and was also associated with both progression-free and overall survival.
In contrast, performance status — which has long been considered an important clinical variable in predicting clinical outcomes — did not influence either progression-free survival (PFS) or overall survival (OS) in the same study.
“Baseline activity level measured using wearable devices may help identify patients with NSCLC who are fit for concurrent chemoradiation therapy and can predict clinical outcomes in this setting,” the study authors, led by Nitin Ohri, MD, of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, conclude.
