New mHealth Wearable Tested to Detect Graft-Versus-Host-Disease

January 03, 2020 - Researchers at the University of Michigan are integrating mHealth sensors with AI tools to develop a wearable monitor that detects graft-versus-host disease.

In a proof-of-concept study recently published in the journal Blood Advances, a team from the university’s School of Public health and Medical School developed an mHealth wearable that monitors body temperature. The underlying technology identifies temperature fluctuations as an early indicator of GVHD, a sometimes fatal complication in people who have received bone-marrow transplants.

The connected health platform has so far been tested on mice, and researchers are now looking to modify the program for testing on people.

“Our study was a proof-of-concept for the hypothesis that temperature fluctuations could give us early indications of the cascading immune response that leads to GVHD,” Muneesh Tewari, MD, PhD, a researcher at UM’s Rogel Cancer Center and the study’s senior author, said in a press release issued by the university. “We saw changes in the temperature data within the first week after transplantation, which is earlier than what is currently possible for non-invasive detection of GVHD in mice or humans.”

The project is one of many using mHealth wearables to personalize remote patient monitoring services and identify trending health concerns before they become serious. In many cases these devices are programmed to spot variations in temperature, heart rate or other biometric signs that might be too subtle to be noticed.

Among some of the early test cases are wearables – including mats and socks – that monitor temperature in patients living with diabetes, where subtle variations can indicate the onset of diabetic ulcers. Other devices are being tested to detect the beginnings of pneumonia in one’s breathing rate, or the onset of sepsis or other infections.

According to Tewari and his colleagues, AI technology integrated into their wearable sensors can be fine-tuned to detect individual changes in temperature that might signal the onset of GVHD, which affects as many as half of all people undergoing bone marrow transplants.

The challenge going forward, Tewari says, is in adapting this platform to the human body, and taking into account variables such as room temperature, medications being taken by the patient and other physiological concerns, such as infections.

That said, the researchers noted that an mHealth wearable designed to detect GVHD could identify patients well before the disease takes hold, enabling care providers to intervene much earlier and reduce the chance of adverse clinical outcomes, including death.