Many common chemotherapy drugs make their way in the blood to fingers and toes and destroy sensitive nerve endings. This chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) is horrible on several levels:
• Common, painful, and debilitating;
• Not curable;
• Dramatically decreases quality of life for survivors;
• Payors are spending an average of $17k, per year, per patient, just trying to deal with symptoms;
• Oncologists struggle with two bad choices when it occurs in the middle of several rounds of chemo:
keep going and cause a permanent disability or stop treatment and the patient dies.
A poster was presented at last year's American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO) conference showing a 55% reduction in nerve damage with cooling, concluding that all patients receiving neurotoxic chemo drugs should be encouraged to cool their hands and feet on the day of chemo.
Problem is, there's no easy and safe way to do it. Patients are struggling with ice cold solutions, designed for injury or rehabilitation: 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off. Cancer patients need less cold, uninterrupted, for several hours while the drug is at a high concentration in the blood. Eisana Health is the first company to design cooling gloves that allow a patient to use their hands (phone, eat, read, etc) and cooling booties that allow a patient to use their feet (walk).