Analyzing Patient Interactions within Cancer

Support Groups

Together with: Marc Rasi, Suchi Saria, Daphne Koller Katy Plant, Philip Ritter and Kate Lorig

Zhenghao Chen, Pang Wei Koh

Cancer

• Leading cause of death in the developed world

• Treatment:• Chemotherapy• Surgery• Radiotherapy

• Threat of recurrence

• Management of cancer survivors is important

very debilitating!

Traditional Peer Support Groups

Online Peer Support Groups

Some Questions

1. Do online support groups work?2. Can we discover better clinical practices?3. Can we predict health outcomes more

accurately?

Sentiment Trends

Sentiment-Topic Association

• cancer treatment years year breast chemo back recurrence months treatments pain diagnosis diagnosed oncologist ll finished dx told doctor

• side therapy scan don blood scars lymphedema radiation onc scar eects arm surgeon results physical reconstruction follow doctor pain

• love kids year mom cat joy dogs years cats husband son home watching funny place sound house christmas watch

Sentiment-Topic Association

• sleep bed night work hours sleeping nights stressed trouble earlier early late schedule tired morning ready music problems times

• plan action week peggy great days tools plans specific make session exercise walking confidence level completing time good complete

Outcome Prediction

Absolute Change0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

BaselineAugmented

Conclusion

• Data from online groups is plentiful and untapped

• It seems to work even with a small dataset

• Scaling up might help us improve clinical outcomes for cancer patients