Offline decision support for generalists treating common cancers in low-resource settings
A phone app that works without internet and guides a general doctor or nurse through diagnosing and treating common cancers with the drugs actually available locally.
In much of the world cancer is treated by generalists with no oncologist within reach. Resource-stratified guidelines (NCCN Harmonized Guidelines for sub-Saharan Africa, ASCO resource-stratified guidelines, WHO essential medicines) exist as documents. Encoding them as offline-capable, computable decision support with local formulary awareness, dose calculators and referral criteria, endorsed by WHO and ministries, would put them at the point of care.
- Knowledge reaches practice too slowly · Knowledge diffusion is slow: it takes years for a proven result to change what most patients receive, and no one can keep up with the literature.
- Most of the world has almost no cancer care · Seven in ten cancer deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, where radiotherapy, pathology, surgery and drugs are scarce.
- Not enough oncologists, nurses, pathologists, physicists · The number of people with cancer is rising faster than the workforce trained to treat them.
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