Clinical utility of a novel non-invasive technology for monitoring severe neutropenia in anticancer therapy

e13632 Background: Every year more than 140,000 patients receiving anticancer therapy for malignancies in the US experience febrile neutropenia. Early detection of severe neutropenia could enable preventive strategies to reduce the incidence of febrile episodes. PointCheck is a novel portable optical device that can noninvasively monitor for severe neutropenia at home using microscopy and artificial intelligence. Preliminary clinical results of this device including usability (Lamaj et al., 2022), and sensitivity, and specificity (Pablo-Trinidad et al., 2019) for detection of severe neutropenia have already been reported. Here, we describe an exploratory clinical utility subanalysis. Methods: We conducted an international multicenter study with a primary endpoint of usability including mainly patients with hematological or breast cancer receiving therapy with intermediate/high risk for severe neutropenia, tested at two time points (baseline and nadir tests). Data included demographic information, cancer type, and a differential cell count within 120 minutes of the optical testing. The treating physician also completed an exploratory survey with 11 questions about the device´s potential clinical utility. A mixed-methods approach (descriptive statistics & “Likert” analyses with R 4.2.2) was used to evaluate the results. Results: 79 patients were included in this exploratory subanalysis. The median age was 49.5 (IQR 10.5-78.5) years, and 64 (81%) patients were female. The most common diagnoses were breast cancer (63%) and lymphoma (20%). Preliminary utility results were favorable with attending physicians agreeing that PointCheck could have helped evaluate 85% of the patients. In 82% of the patients, physicians felt that the device could avoid preparation of chemotherapy infusions in the setting of neutropenia. In 73% of the patients, physicians would consider administration of G-CSF or prophylactic antibiotics when sustained grade IV neutropenia was detected. Conclusions: This novel technology is able to non-invasively monitor for severe neutropenia and can add clinical utility as assessed by treating oncologists. Further studies are needed to validate these results.