At the age of 28, Susanna Zsoter was diagnosed with colon cancer Stage IV. This means she is on palliative therapy and there is no chance of cure for her. Soon she started to write a blog named “Krebskriegerin” about her cancer journey because she wanted to show that life is still great even with a lifeshortening and deadly disease. She motivates people to make the best out of their situation and, of course, she encourages her readers to have colon cancer screening regularly, so that her story does not become the story of others, too.

In the #mthcon2020 session “MediaTech in Health: Empowering Patient Journeys with Digital Tools” on November 11 Susanne Zsoter will share her experiences as a cancer patient. Together with Peter A. Fasching, Claudiu Leverenz, Barbara Stegmann and Jonas Jung she will discuss the question: How can digital care concepts and media technology support patients on their therapeutic and diagnostic path?

Do you have any intriguing insights that you want to share with us?  

According to scientific studies, managing your own cancer increases the survival rate. For this reason, I work with a company that enables patients to manage their own illness or e.g. participate in an app-based psycho-oncological program from home that helps them coping better with their situation. The app is called MIKA and helps the user with AI to be educated about their situation, reduce stress, handle better with emotions or gain control over their own situation. 

Apps for managing your own cancer can help you to identify side effects early and give you the chance to treat them before major damage occurs. Technologies such as AI can link the data smart. That brings real added value to the patient and his treating doctors. However, many apps have a major problem with data protection and data security. For this reason, together with a team of motivated developers we are working on a modular open source approach that helps patients manage their cancer smartly - while maintaining absolute data sovereignty. So they can save time with the help of technology and concentrate fully on their therapy - or in the case of incurability at least on creating many wonderful memories with their loved ones. 

What key message(s) do you want to share with this year’s conference community?  

Smart technology can be a real game changer in a cancer patient’s life and the quality of their treatment.  

How can it be reality that we can organise and optimise our whole life, workflows or private life with smart technology but when it comes to something important like managing cancer we are still in stone age and forced to use pen and paper?  

What does MediaTech mean to you and how is it relevant to your work?  

For me, MediaTech is key when it comes to future business models because digitalisation is increasing. Especially for young cancer patients like me smart solutions that are running on a smart phone, or using state of the art technology in medical environment are key. Sadly, cancer won’t be over in a few years and today’s digital natives will be tomorrows cancer patients. So we need MediaTech today to solve tomorrows problems.