Cancer-fighting Evexia arms doctors with better data to improve treatment

Evexia’s Co-founder Otto Laitinen believes that by harnessing data, cancer treatment can be developed tremendously.

“There’s a lot we can achieve in this regard – and our smart software is aimed at solving some core problems in the field,” Laitinen says.

Laitinen explains that, presently, cancer treatment revolves around the ECOG grade – given to every patient – which practically measures the performance status of the patient. ECOG is used to understand, what type of treatment the patient can withstand.

“However, studies show that there are three main problems with it: subjectivity, recall bias and the static nature of the grading itself,” Laitinen comments.

The problem involving subjectivity is that the ECOG grade is often decided by only one doctor – while research shows that doctors often don’t agree on the score.

Recall bias means that patients are prone to human error when trying to remember their past symptoms and activity, which makes the doctor’s job that much harder. Performance status (PS) assessment, on the other hand, remains rather static as the score is captured only during clinical visits. As a patient’s PS is dynamic throughout treatment, it can change daily – and clinical visits can hardly tell the whole story.