mRCC was linked to a high incidence of distress, a high degree of symptom load, and a wide range of quality-of-life impairments. A smartphone application aimed at enhancing mindfulness has been developed from a Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery program that has been shown to mitigate these elements in the setting of localized breast cancer (Utkarsh et al. Digital Health 2021); researchers wanted to determine if the advantage of a related application could be translated to patients with mRCC. Patients were enrolled in the research if they had been diagnosed with mRCC, were receiving immunotherapy, mentioned clinically-relevant anxiety, had a smartphone with internet connectivity, were not presently practicing meditation, and had not participated in a mindfulness program in the previous 5 years. Over 4 weeks, patients were instructed to engage in mindfulness app-based activities for 20-30 minutes each day, guided by the Mindfulness-Based Cancer Survivorship Journey program inside the AM Mindfulness smartphone app (AmDTxTM), for at least 4 days each week. The application guides the patient via supervised meditation practices and coping approaches for cancer and cancer symptoms. The Fear of Cancer Recurrence-7 and Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-General scales were used to evaluate patients at baseline and 2 weeks after completing the 4-week smartphone-app-based program. Paired t-tests are used to analyze reported information, with a P-value of smaller than 0.05 considered important. To date, a total of 23 patients had been enlisted. Most were male (52%), white/Caucasian (52%), married (69%), and college-educated (82%), and were mostly getting nivolumab (34%) or nivolumab/ipilimumab (34%) therapy (30% ); median age was 59 years. Most patients (78%) were satisfied and engaged with the therapy; nevertheless, a small percentage (13%) said it reminded them of their cancer diagnosis, which was viewed as a negative element. After 2 weeks of the program, preliminary data analysis revealed statistically significant declines in the anxiety of cancer progression (mean differences: baseline =22; week 2=18, P=0.012) and improvements in quality of life (mean differences: baseline=77; week 2 =85, P=0.001). Physical and mental well-being was also improved significantly over time. The meeting provided the full information with a 12-week follow-up. This was the first research to use a smartphone-based, evidence-based psychosocial support application with mRCC patients. Researchers noticed considerable changes in the anxiety of disease development and quality of life after only 2 weeks. This preliminary evidence showed that patients were accepting this form of low-cost, mobile-app-based psychotherapy and that it might successfully address psychological distress.

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