Cancer Patients Indicate It Will Be More Comfortable to Be Treated Upright

Positive patient feedback is supporting our long-held view that sitting in an upright position to receive radiation therapy for treating certain cancers is the way forward.

Here at Leo Cancer Care our main goal in developing an upright solution to deliver improved targeted radiotherapy treatment is to make it more human for those suffering from the disease. One benefit, we feel is truly connected to feeling more human is increasing both their comfort and the support clinicians can give during the process.

Providing the right data to evidence that our solution will do just this has been crucial to our mission.

Consequently, we partnered with the Centre Léon Bérard in Lyon, France – a comprehensive cancer centre that is dedicated solely to cancer care, research and education.

The results are in

Recent patient trials conducted at the centre have delivered some strong preferences from those who took part in regards to how comfortable and stable they felt, as well as how easy it was to navigate getting in and out of the rotating upright seat.

Eight men and eight women with a range of cancers including prostate, bladder and cervix/uterine corpus tumours took part in the trials during a nine-month period ending in June last year (2022).

Their ages ranged between 35 and 81 years old, and all their different heights and weights were noted. All of them were at various stages of their treatments including chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The tests sought to measure how being in an upright position felt to them as opposed to the traditional method of delivering radiation treatment, which is lying flat (supine) on a bench beneath a large, rotating gantry.

Reinforcing the feedback, patients are in favour of upright

We have often heard feedback from patients saying they would rather be in an upright position and that they would feel more comfortable - and now they are telling us this is true.

A total of 87% of patients said they felt comfortable or very comfortable compared to 73% for lying horizontally. Thirteen per cent of patients told us they even felt pain while in the supine position.

Another highlight from the study revealed that we hit the mark in terms of patients being able to relax and breathe easily. All of our patients (100%) found it comfortable or very comfortable to breathe upright compared to 87% in supine.

An easier system to navigate for patients

The patients also found it easier to get out of the system from being in an upright position with a mean score of 94% for upright versus 60% for supine. In terms of setup, 87% of patients indicated that it was easy or very easy to get into position – with some naturally positioning themselves without needing adjustment from the Radiation Therapist.

A further statistic reinforcing the case for a move to upright positioning was that our participants felt more stable. A total of 87% favoured upright compared to 67% in supine and the anecdotal feedback suggests this is because there is less fear of falling while upright.

Our hopes for the future

The results of the study are important for us in terms of validating what we already knew and enabling us to now share this with the world.

Having acquired this important scientific evidence will also, hopefully, support our quest to democratise cancer treatment by helping us, in the near future, to bring upright radiotherapy to more people who need it across the globe.

To read the paper in full click here

Hear Sophie Boisbouvier from Centre Léon Bérard explain the key findings from her research in our upcoming live presentation. Register here!