CARES : Customized Aftercare Report for Evaluated Skin Cancer Patients

Official title

Development and Evaluation of a Personalized Discharge Letter for Low-risk Skin Cancer Patients After Dermatological Screening.

Overview

Current clinical practices often provide general verbal advice to low-risk patients, which may not sufficiently address individual concerns or offer actionable steps. Generic information on the internet can be overwhelming or unreliable, leading to confusion and unnecessary follow-up visits. This project introduces a tailored approach by combining evidence-based guidelines with personalized details about the patient's risk profile. The discharge letter bridges the gap between clinical expertise and patient understanding, offering clear, specific, and actionable advice that has been shown to improve health behaviors and outcomes in other contexts . The personalized discharge letters are generated using an AI agent trained on validated letters from the hospital's electronic health record system (KWS). Each letter is reviewed and approved by a physician before being provided to the patient, ensuring both accuracy and clinical relevance.

Detailed description

This study is a prospective, parallel-group, open-label, randomized controlled trial designed to evaluate the impact of a personalized discharge letter-with or without digital visual support -on reassurance, knowledge, and self-management in low-risk skin cancer patients following dermatological screening.

Study Arms: Participants will be randomly assigned to one of three groups:

* Group A - Standard of Care: Verbal information only. * Group B - Personalized Discharge Letter: Tailored written information based on individual risk profile, skin type and consultation findings. * Group C - Personalized Discharge Letter + digital visual support: Tailored written information plus digital visual support (e.g. annotated images, visual summaries).

Scientific Rationale Current discharge practices for low-risk skin cancer patients often rely on general verbal advice, which may not sufficiently address individual concerns or promote long-term self-care. Evidence from other medical domains suggests that personalized communication improves patient understanding, satisfaction, and adherence to follow-up recommendations.

This study introduces an AI agent trained on validated discharge letters from the hospital's electronic health record system (KWS). The AI helpt collect information from the electronic health record that is relevant for creating personalized letters that are reviewed by a physician before being provided to the patient. These letters aim to improve understanding of personal skin cancer risk, sun protection, and self-monitoring practices.

The addition of visual digital support (IntelliStudio) is hypothesized to further enhance patient engagement and confidence by providing clear, visual explanations of findings and next steps. This design allows for a direct comparison of standard care versus increasingly personalized interventions, enabling the evaluation of both individual and combined effects.

Interventions

• Behavioral Verbal information only
  Verbal information only
• Behavioral Personalized Discharge Letter
  Personalized Discharge Letter: Tailored written information based on individual risk profile, skin type and consultation findings.
• Behavioral Personalized Discharge Letter + IntelliStudio
  Personalized Discharge Letter + IntelliStudio: Tailored written information plus digital visual support (e.g. annotated images, visual summaries).

Primary outcome measures

• Level of Reassurance Immediately Post-Consultation [Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year]
• Knowledge of Personal Skin Cancer Risk [Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year]
• Confidence in Performing Self-Skin Checks [Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year]

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion criteria

• Voluntary written informed consent of the participant or their legally authorized representative has been obtained prior to any screening procedures
• Low-risk skin cancer patients:

• Negative personal history for melanoma
• Less than 100 naevi
• Less than 5 clinically atypical naevi
• Maximum 1 BCC in history
• Maximum 1 SCC, and at least 5 years ago
• AK: treated and controlled with clinical response
• M Bowen: treated and controlled with clinical response
• Adult subjects (between 18 years of age and 80 years) at time of enrolment

Exclusion criteria

• Presence of dermatological lesions requiring immediate treatment at the time of consultation.
• History of solid organ transplantation (Organ Transplant Recipient, OTR).
• Known carriers or suspected carriers (based on family history) of germline mutations associated with increased skin cancer risk (e.g. CDKN2A, PTCH1, XP genes).
• Failure to meet one or more of the inclusion criteria.
• Any condition or comorbidity that, in the opinion of the investigator, may interfere with study participation or data interpretation (e.g. severe cognitive impairment, language barrier).
• Participation in another interventional clinical trial that may interfere with the outcomes of this study.

Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.

Healthy volunteers: No

Study design

Allocation

Randomized

Model

Parallel assignment

Masking

Open label

Primary purpose

Health services research

Study locations

Belgium · 1 center

• UZLeuven, Department of Dermatology — Leuven

Identifiers

NCT: NCT07330323 · S70829

Primary sources (government registries)

• ClinicalTrials.gov (US NIH)

View this study on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗