Background: The use of prostate cancer screening tools that take into account relevant pre-biopsy information (ie, risk calculators), is recommended as a way of determining the risk of cancer and the subsequent need for a prostate biopsy. mHealth apps are gaining traction in urological practice and are used by both practitioners and patients for a variety of purposes.
Objective: The impetus of the study was to design, develop and assess a smartphone application (app) for prostate cancer screening, based on the Rotterdam Prostate Cancer Risk Calculator (RPCRC).
Methods: The results of the Rotterdam arm of the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) study were used to elaborate several algorithms that allowed the risk of prostate cancer to be estimated based on different clinical information. A workflow was developed to assure that depending on the available clinical information, the most complete risk model of the RPCRC was used. The user interface was designed and then the app was developed as a native application for iOS. The usability of the app was assessed using the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ) developed by IBM, in a group of 92 participants comprised of urologists, general practitioners and medical students.
Results: Eleven questions were built into the app, and, depending on the answers, one of the different algorithms of the RPCRC could be used to predict the risk of prostate cancer and of significant prostate cancer. The system usefulness, information quality and interface quality scores were high – 92%, 87% and 89% respectively. No usability problems were identified.
Conclusions: The RPCRC app is helpful in predicting the risk of a prostate cancer and significant prostate cancer. Its algorithms have been externally validated before and the usability score shows the app’s interface is well designed. Further usability testing is required in different populations to verify these results.