OBJECTIVES : Oral chemotherapeutic medications are increasingly being used for the treatment of cancer. Their long-term use raises questions about patients’ adherence to prescribed regimens. Therefore, we developed CORA – a personalized smartphone-based self-management app to help cancer patients on oral anti-cancer medications manage symptoms, medication, and medication side-effects with the overall goal of improving adherence to medications. Our objective was to evaluate the effect of CORA on adherence to oral anti-cancer medications.

METHODS : RESULTS : Median MMAS scores did not differ by group, in the intervention vs. the control group: 6 (25-75%: 5-7) vs. 6 (25-75%: 6-7) at enrollment (p=0.90), 7(25-75%: 6-7) vs. 7 (25-75%: 6-7) at midpoint (p=0.27), and 7(25-75%: 6,7) vs. 7 (25-75%:6,7) at closeout (p=0.79). At closeout, percentage of participants between the intervention and control groups varied from 13.33% vs. 17.65%, 66.67% vs. 58.82%, and 20.00% vs. 23.52%, in the high, medium, and low adherence categories, respectively (p-value=0.84).

Limitation: Assessing adherence with pill bottles was not feasible as most participants did not store their medications in the bottles for reasons including, difficulty in opening bottles, inadequate space for medications, fear of contamination when transferring medications and multiple daily dosing.

CONCLUSIONS : CORA did not increase adherence to oral anti-cancer medications. Identifying the “right” add-on technology specific for target population is critical to implementation success for digital health solutions.