About us
About MySurvivorCare (MSC) Project
Associate Professor Michelle Peate, in collaboration with consumer organisations, and researchers and clinicians at the Universities of Melbourne, Western Sydney, Western Australia, and the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre are developing this MySurvivorCare (MSC) web-based app to help women living with and beyond cancer manage their menopause symptoms after cancer treatment. MySurvivorCare (MSC) web-based app will offer personalised guidance on managing hot flushes and night sweats. Women living with and beyond canner can use the web-based app to assess their symptoms and based on the symptom impact, recommendations on how to manage symptoms will be provided.
Why the need to Improve Menopause after Cancer Care?
Cancer and its treatments can have enduring side effects affecting the quality of life (QoL) of women living with and beyond cancer. A common consequence of cancer treatment in women is menopause-affecting up to 40,000 Australian women living with and beyond the disease annually. Menopausal symptoms such as hot flushes, night sweats, and dryness of the vagina and vulva can have significant impacts on day-to-day living, with flow-on effects on the ability to work, financial hardship, social interactions, and mortality due to reduced adherence to cancer treatment. Although evidence-based interventions and clinical practice guidelines exist for managing these symptoms, evidence suggests that about 20-32% are offered treatment, and 26-60% have expressed unmet needs for information, self-management, non-medical interventions and specialist care. Therefore, novel approaches to manage menopause in women living with and beyond cancer, such as those incorporating assessment of symptoms and tailored or stepped approaches to treatment are needed to improve access to care and reduce these symptom burden.
Why is the MySurvivorCare (MSC) web-based app needed?
A key challenge in translating research into practice is overcoming the barriers – competing clinical priorities, lack of time, and a lack of reliable ways to identify patients in need. Current services for women living with and beyond cancer are fragmented and struggle to meet demand.
Evidence-based treatments exist for the management of the long-term side-effects of cancer treatment. However, there is no centralized platform to access these interventions, and no system to ensure women receive the appropriate level of care. Without intervention, women living with and beyond cancer could experience worse QoL, and, as side-effects can compromise adherence to therapy, potentially higher morbidity and mortality.
MySurvivorCare will be a central online web-based platform where women living with and beyond cancer to access interventions to manage their menopausal symptoms and other common and troublesome consequences of cancer treatment. The MSC web-based app would use a patient-driven stepped-care approach (i.e. women living with and beyond cancer lead the assessment of their symptom, based on the symptom impact, a hierarchy of interventions, from least to most intensive, will be matched to individual need and relies heavily on the woman being proactive in following recommendations provided).
This patient-driven model could reduce healthcare burden, while improving transparency, flow, and customization of healthcare delivery.