Leo Cancer Care Enters Unique Collaboration With Innovative Child-Patient App
Helping make the cancer treatment journey less daunting for patients of all ages
The Xploro app showing the Leo Cancer Care technology.
MIDDLETON, WISCONSIN, UNITED STATES, January 9, 2024 /- Leo Cancer Care is teaming up with the producers of an innovative app designed to reduce stress and anxiety for young people facing the prospect of treatment and hospitalisation.
Xploro®, which is a clinically-validated patient education platform, and Leo Cancer Care which provides solutions to deliver radiation therapy to patients in an upright position, are cementing links developed in the last three years as a result of their common goals of improving patient experience.
The Xploro app uses augmented reality, gameplay and artificial intelligence to deliver health information to young patients as they prepare for treatment from conditions such as cancer.
A view of a proton therapy treatment room using the Xploro app.
Combining expertise
Now, Leo Cancer Care and Xploro are planning closer collaboration with plans to work together and combine their expertise to jointly develop a child-friendly game for inclusion on the app.
Xploro Chief Executive Dom Raban founded the company when his daughter Issy was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma - a cancer that occurs primarily in the bone or soft tissue – in 2011 at the age of 13.
“She did not have a great prognosis at the start, but has had a very good outcome,” said Raban. “But there was virtually no information about what was going to happen to her on her journey.”
Prompted by that, he led the development of the Xploro app to help prepare children for their forthcoming cancer treatments.
Less daunting
Leo Cancer Care CEO Stephen Towe became aware of Xploro and began liaising with Raban to examine where the two organisations – which both work to use their technology to make the patient experience less daunting – could collaborate.
Raban said: “I was blown away by what Leo Cancer Care does with the idea of patients being treated in the upright rather than supine position but also the beautifully simple idea of rotating the patient rather than rotating the technology.”
A number of centres globally are already placing orders for Leo Cancer Care’s upright technology as it delivers treatment accurately, in a patient-friendly way, and takes up a significantly smaller footprint than rotating gantries.
Interactive app
“Our goal is to reduce anxiety prior to a treatment by showing a child exactly what is going to happen stage by stage in a fun, playful and interactive way,” he continued.
“With the Xploro app, a child creates and customises the 3D avatar to guide them through their healthcare journey and it introduces them to things like proton gantries and other pieces of equipment.”
Xploro, as with Leo Cancer Care, has an expert Advisory Board, yet with the app designer the members are all aged 7-16 to give a view from a relevant patient perspective.
“We have research which shows children using Xploro have a significant reduction in procedural anxiety,” added Raban.
“It is less daunting for the child and if a child is less anxious, it has benefits for the child and their long-term health outcomes as well as benefits for the provider because less anxious patients are easier to treat and set-up times are quicker.”
Similar goals
This mirrors research conducted for Leo Cancer Care highlighting the benefits of treating patients in the upright position with reduced anxiety, greater comfort and quicker set-up times.
Towe said: “It was such a fantastic experience to meet the Xploro team and sit in on the expert Advisory Board and hear the children’s perspectives.
“There are so many similarities in our goals and we look forward to working more closely with Xploro in the coming months at industry events and delivery of Radiotherapy from a paediatric perspective.”
Raban added: “I have met a lot of healthcare companies but very few that have excited me in the way that Leo Cancer Care does; I love the simplicity of the idea and approach that they are taking.
“I think it is great that they have such a patient-centred approach, which fits very neatly with our approach, so it is a very comfortable, natural relationship. We are a natural fit for each other.”
*The Leo Cancer Care technology is not yet clinically available and is in the process of acquiring regulatory status for its upright delivery system in the United States and Europe.