Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT), a chronic autoimmune disease caused by an interaction between genetic factors and the environmental is treated by thyroid supplementation as the first line of treatment. However, many of the symptoms are unrelated to the failing thyroid function, but seem to be connected to the autoimmune disease, remain. Literature has reported on many of the environmental triggers of autoimmune response, however patients do not have a unified way to record, document, measure and understand their experiences and share them with their healthcare practitioners.

Objective: We aim to build a mobile phone application that would allow patients to record and overview their symptoms as well as their compliance to medication.

Design: The app is build on a combination of thus far biomedical knowledge of symptoms related to Hashimoto’s as well as information gathered from interviewing individuals diagnosed with Hashimoto’s. It enables individuals to record their experience on daily-weekly and monthly basis. No data are collected, the system is decentralized, and the recorded data are stored only on patient’s phones.

Results: Patient’s needs could be easily served through a mobile phone app, according to the first results. It could help the patients implement lifestyle changes that would serve as a first line of defence against non-thyroid related Hashimoto’s symptoms.

Conclusion: Smart phone apps have a great value and potential in collecting a large pool of worldwide data, however they need to be co-developed with biomedical scientists and healthcare professionals in order to fully serve to patients, medical healthcare professionals as well as the research.