Claire Mulvey, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine, UCSF

Project: eNET: a Web-Based Health Platform to Investigate Quality of Life in Patients with Neuroendocrine Tumors

Award Mechanism: Pilot for Early Career Investigators

Can you describe the focus of your project in a few sentences?

The eNET study is a digital health study to investigate quality of life for patients with neuroendocrine cancers. Although neuroendocrine cancers are often indolent, patients can have many chronic symptoms from tumor bulk/metastasis, hormone overproduction, and the cumulative side effects from prolonged treatment. In eNET, participants are asked a series of validated surveys over time about symptoms, lifestyle, diet, exercise, quality of life, medical expenses, and financial toxicity. We hope to better characterize patterns of symptoms and identify risk factors for high symptom burden in this population. The RAP grant will fund the analysis of the baseline and 6-month study visit data. 

What motivated you to pursue this particular project? What do you find most exciting about this research?

Neuroendocrine cancers are relatively rare but increasing in incidence. We have more treatment options than ever before, but many patients I see in clinic still struggle with quality of life. The eNET study is unique because 1) we are measuring quality of life using validated surveys, which are reliable, reproducible, and allow for comparisons between different groups; and 2) the longitudinal component, which I hope will better capture the full experience of living with these cancers. I'm also learning how to conduct web-based research and engage participants remotely, an approach that may have promise for studying other rare cancers in the future!

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