Background: The digital phenotyping tool has great potential for the deep characterization of neurological and quality-of-life assessments in brain tumor patients. Phone communication activities (details on call and text use) can provide insight into the patients’ sociability. Methods: We prospectively collected digital-phenotyping data from six brain tumor patients. The data were collected using the Beiwe application installed on their personal smartphones. We constructed several daily sociability features from phone communication logs, including the number of incoming and outgoing text messages and calls, the length of messages and duration of calls, message reciprocity, the number of communication partners, and number of missed calls. We compared variability in these sociability features against those obtained from a control group, matched for age and sex, selected among patients with a herniated disc. Results: In brain tumor patients, phone-based communication appears to deteriorate with time, as evident in the trend for total outgoing minutes, total outgoing calls, and call out-degree. Conclusions: These measures indicate a possible decrease in sociability over time in brain tumor patients that may correlate with survival. This exploratory analysis suggests that a quantifiable digital sociability phenotype exists and is comparable for patients with different survival outcomes. Overall, assessing neurocognitive function using digital phenotyping appears promising.
背景：数字表型工具在脑肿瘤患者的神经功能及生活质量评估方面具有深度表征的巨大潜力。手机通讯活动（通话与短信使用详情）可揭示患者的社会交往能力。方法：我们前瞻性收集了六名脑肿瘤患者的数字表型数据，通过安装于其个人智能手机的Beiwe应用程序进行采集。基于手机通讯记录构建了多项日常社交特征指标，包括收发短信数量、通话次数、短信长度与通话时长、短信互动频率、通讯联系人数量以及未接来电次数。我们将这些社交特征指标的变异度与年龄性别匹配的椎间盘突出症对照组患者进行比较。结果：脑肿瘤患者的手机通讯活动随时间推移呈衰退趋势，具体体现在总呼出时长、总呼出次数及呼出联系人数量的递减趋势。结论：这些测量指标提示脑肿瘤患者的社会交往能力可能随时间推移而下降，且可能与生存期存在关联。本探索性分析表明，可量化的数字社交表型确实存在，且在不同生存结局患者间具有可比性。总体而言，运用数字表型技术评估神经认知功能展现出良好前景。
肿瘤(癌症)患者之家