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Cindy Tumiel - Express-News

Scientists have made great strides in treating childhood cancers, but the treatment works only if the young patients take their medicine and follow their doctors' orders.

That has proven to be a challenge for teens and young adults, who may spend one or two taxing years in treatment for bone cancer, brain tumors or leukemia. They must follow rigid schedules for taking drugs that are precisely timed for maximum effect, and some medications have unpleasant side effects, which makes patients less likely to take them.

But doctors have found a new friend in their quest to help young cancer patients — a buxom, tough-minded nanobot named Roxxi, who soars through the bloodstream of fictitious cancer patients to blast away malignant cells, battle infectious bacteria and neutralize chemotherapy side effects like nausea and constipation.

The video game, called “Re-Mission”, was developed in part by San Antonio researchers, and a peer-reviewed study being published today credits the game with keeping young patients more compliant with life-saving cancer treatment. Teens and young adults who played the game also demonstrated a better understanding of their disease, compared with those who played other video games, the study said.

“The idea was to come up with something that would have an impact,” said Brad Pollock, chairman of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Texas Health Science Center and a lead author on the study.

“We know from other studies that if kids deviate from their prescribed therapies ... there could be a significant impact on their survival,” Pollock said. “The timing of all the drug delivery is so precise now, you have to do it on the exact time, day, hour to make sure the combination therapy is going to do all the things it is supposed to do.”

The game was developed with financial support from HopeLab, a nonprofit organization founded by Pam Omidyar, wife of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. HopeLab has distributed 125,000 copies of the game free around the globe. It also is available for download at the foundation's Web site, www.hopelab.org.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, involved 375 cancer patients ages 13 to 29, getting treatment at 34 medical centers in the United States, Canada and Australia. A handful of San Antonio patients at Christus Santa Rosa Children's Hospital were part of the study. Santa Rosa patients also were involved in an earlier pilot study that tested the game during its development.

Half the patients had access to “Re-Mission” for two months; the rest received another adventure video game to play for at least an hour each week. Scientists used blood tests to measure the amount of medication the patients took and employed sophisticated pill bottles that kept count of how many times they were opened. Patients also were asked questions about how well they thought they could take care of themselves.

Patients who played “Re-Mission” maintained higher levels of chemotherapy in their bloodstream, were more likely to take prescribed antibiotics, had better knowledge about their cancer and felt more capable of taking care of themselves, the study said.

“What I find is the kids that play this game go through this whole process a lot easier,” said Laura Worsham, a pediatric oncology case manager at Santa Rosa. “They understand they are not the only ones going through this.”

“We have very effective treatments for cancer in adolescents, but they only work if the patient takes them,” Steve Cole, Ph.D., vice president of research at HopeLab, said in a prepared release. “This study shows that a strategically designed video game can be a powerful new tool to enhance the impact of medical treatment by motivating healthy behavior in the patient.”