Phase 2 – November 2025 – November 2028

In November of 2025 we started the next phase of the SenseCheQ project funded for 3 years by the EPSRC Transforming prediction and early diagnosis in the community funding call. The call is specifically aiming to help early diagnosis of health issues, particularly for people who face barriers to accessing specialist care. The full press release can be found HERE.

The same team, bolstered by the addition of a Patient Design focus group is partnering with designworks to optimize the current design and deliver a minimal viable product to deploy in a larger clinical trial. The funding also includes further exploration of additional modalities and innovative technology to further improve the sensitivity to early development of CIPN. The current iteration of SenseCheQ measures how well people detect vibration, cooling and warming, but we want to explore developing home-based, self-administrable tests of fine touch and motor function as well to supplement the data provided by the original three parameters.

Workplan 1 (UK wide) driven by patient partners split into an advisory and design (development) group. We will build upon our established template for PPIE to ensure that the minimal viable product meets ergonomic and user requirements for our target population. This workplan will also feed into our development and testing of novel modalities to help us innovate and bring new tests to the community in a similar manner as the original SenseCheQ development did in Phase 1.

Workplan 2 (designworks) our industrial partners, with input from all academic and patient teams, will optimize our initial hardware and software design to deliver a minimal viable product. We have mapped a development programme for hardware, firmware, user interface and communications solutions. The development plan will ensure that the device is built to medical device equivalent specification with an appropriate level of documentation (UKAS test certified to IEC-60601-1-8 and 60601-1-2), component specification, safety mechanisms, software design and ergonomics.

Workplan 3 (Newcastle & Bristol) We will develop novel tests of sensory and motor function that can be used to assay different manifestations of the neurotoxicity of CIPN specifically in the home environment. These reflect our discussions with our PPIE partners who report difficulties with fastening buttons, putting in earrings, dropping and picking up small or flat objects since developing CIPN.

Workplan 4 (Bristol & Dundee) Early detection of neurotoxicity and CIPN diagnosis – proof of concept study. We will recruit 70 participants recently diagnosed with breast or gastrointestinal cancer (the commonest cancers in the UK) scheduled to be treated with taxane- and/or platinum-based chemotherapy (each known to cause neuropathy). These patients will be phenotyped in detail and will be given a SenseCheQ unit to use at home for testing during their treatment cycles. We hope to show feasibility of regular home-based sensory testing using SenseCheQ and evidence of capability to differentiate between participants who do and do not develop CIPN (we are expecting up to 70% to develop acute symptoms and 30% to have chronic neuropathy at follow-up).

Phase 1 – September 2022 – November 2025

Our team of patients, pain doctors and engineers aimed to deliver a simple, cheap and effective sense testing kit, that we are calling SenseCheQ. This will enable patients to check the health of their nerves, at home, during their chemotherapy. We have designed SenseCheQ to be sensitive enough to detect early changes, potentially before the patient notices any symptoms, to enable personalised treatments that will maximise the success of cancer treatment, whilst minimising the risk of chronic pain and loss of sensation.

To deliver SenseCheQ, the first phase consisted of four complementary workplans:

Workplan 1 (UK wide) led and driven by patient partners to ensure that SenseCheQ is user friendly and meets the needs of patients. This workplan also fed into the remaining workplans to ensure that patients remain at the centre of our focus.

Workplan 2 (Newcastle) engineered solutions, by identifying and integrating off-the-shelf components into a suitable device and providing power and communications.

Workplan 3 (Bristol) conducted testing of hardware solutions in healthy volunteers. Initially, individual components (thermal and vibration testing) were tested alone and compared to commonly used sensory testing equipment. As designs progressed, through testing and re-design cycles, the workplan moved o to validation of early integrated SenseCheQ versions in models of nerve damage, home testing with healthy participant and early patient research.

Workplan 4 (Dundee) alongside Bristol performed a feasibility study in patients recruited to use the SenseCheQ device at home during their treatments. The primary interest was how patients got on with the device – is it easy to use? is it robust?

All workplans were completed successfully and further funding was obtained as part of the EPSRC Transforming prediction and early diagnosis in the community funding call.