Towards data-driven pre-operative evaluation of lung cancer patients: the case of smart mask

Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer deaths. Many early stage lung cancer patients have a resectable tumor, however, their cardiopulmonary function needs to be properly evaluated before they are deemed operative candidates. Pulmonary function is assessed via spirometry and diffusion capacity. If these are below a certain threshold, cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) is recommended. CPET is expensive, labor intensive, and sometimes ineffective since the patient is unable to fully participate due to comorbidities, such as limited mobility. In addition, CPET is done using a set of physical activities that may or may not be relevant to the patient’s typical activities. This paper presents steps towards developing a solution to address this gap. Specifically, we present OOCOO, a mobile mask system designed to measure oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in respiration, as well as activity levels. Unlike state of practice, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and activity data can be continuously measured over a long period of time in the patient’s environment of choice. The mask is capable of wireless data transfer to commodity smartphones. We have carried out initial work on development of an Android application to capture, analyze, and share the data with authorized entities.