Evaluation of the use of decision-support software in carcino-embryonic antigen (CEA)-based follow-up of patients with colorectal cancer

doi:10.1186/1472-6947-12-14

BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2012; 12: 14.

Published online 2012 March 5. doi: 10.1186/1472-6947-12-14

PMCID: PMC3330015

Evaluation of the use of decision-support software in carcino-embryonic antigen (CEA)-based follow-up of patients with colorectal cancer

Reviewed by Charlotte J Verberne,¹ Cornelis H Nijboer,¹ Geertruida H de Bock,² Irene Grossmann,³ Theo Wiggers,¹ and Klaas Havenga¹

¹Department of Surgery, University Medical Center Groningen, PO Box 30001, 9700 RB Groningen, the Netherlands

²Department of Epidemiology, University Medical Center Groningen, PO Box 30001, 9700 RB Groningen, the Netherlands

³Department of Surgery, Catharina Hospital, PO Box 1350, 5602 ZA Eindhoven, the Netherlands

Corresponding author.

Charlotte J Verberne: c.j.verberne/at/umcg.nl; Cornelis H Nijboer: chnijboer/at/hotmail.com; Geertruida H de Bock: g.h.de.bock/at/umcg.nl; Irene Grossmann: irene.grossmann/at/me.com; Theo Wiggers: t.wiggers/at/umcg.nl; Klaas Havenga: k.havenga/at/umcg.nl

Received April 30, 2011; Accepted March 5, 2012.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Background

The present paper is a first evaluation of the use of "CEAwatch", a clinical support software system for surgeons for the follow-up of colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. This system gathers Carcino-Embryonic Antigen (CEA) values and automatically returns a recommendation based on the latest values.

Methods

Consecutive patients receiving follow-up care for CRC fulfilling our in- and exclusion criteria were identified to participate in this study. From August 2008, when the software was introduced, patients were asked to undergo the software-supported follow-up. Safety of the follow-up, experiences of working with the software, and technical issues were analyzed.

Results

245 patients were identified. The software-supported group contained 184 patients; the control group contained 61 patients. The software was safe in finding the same amount of recurrent disease with fewer outpatient visits, and revealed few technical problems. Clinicians experienced a decrease in follow-up workload of up to 50% with high adherence to the follow-up scheme.

Conclusion

CEAwatch is an efficient software tool helping clinicians working with large numbers of follow-up patients. The number of outpatient visits can safely be reduced, thus significantly decreasing workload for clinicians.

Keywords: follow-up, colorectal cancer, workflow automation

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