Digital Nutritional Care in Oncology: Opportunities to Enhance Quality of Life and Support Patient-Centered Care.

Background/

Objectives

Nutritional impairment is common across the cancer care continuum and may negatively affect treatment tolerance, functional status, quality of life, and caregiver burden. Digital tools may offer new opportunities to extend nutritional care beyond conventional clinical encounters, but their application in oncology remains heterogeneous and poorly defined. This narrative review aims to describe the current landscape of digital nutritional care in oncology, focusing on quality of life and patient perspectives while also considering the emerging role of caregivers.

Methods

We conducted a narrative review of the available evidence on digital nutritional and lifestyle interventions in cancer care, including mobile applications, web-based platforms, teleconsultations, SMS- or email-based communication, remote monitoring systems, and hybrid models.

Results

Digital nutritional and lifestyle interventions have been evaluated across active treatment, postoperative recovery, and survivorship. Available studies indicate that these interventions are generally feasible and may improve nutritional status, dietary behaviors, and physical activity levels. However, quality-of-life outcomes remain heterogeneous and have not been consistently assessed across studies. Some interventions combining digital tools with personalization, professional feedback, behavioral support, or clinically actionable monitoring reported favorable patient-centered outcomes. However, heterogeneity across studies limits the interpretation of these findings and the identification of specific intervention features associated with effectiveness. Patient and caregiver perspectives further highlight the importance of usability, trust, access to reliable information, communication with healthcare professionals, and practical support in the home setting.

Conclusions

Digital nutritional care has the potential to extend and strengthen the delivery of nutritional care. Rather than replacing conventional interventions, it should be implemented through hybrid, supervised, equitable, and clinically integrated models. Future studies should consistently assess quality of life and other patient-reported outcomes while also addressing caregiver needs, digital burden, psychological safety, and inequalities in access.