PostMast: Post-Mastectomy Pain Syndrome Tracker and Community
Post-mastectomy pain syndrome (PMPS) affects a significant subset of mastectomy patients with severe, prolonged neuropathic pain — yet it remains under-recognized, under-treated, and under-studied, partly because patients lack tools to track their symptoms and communicate their experience to…
PostMast: Post-Mastectomy Pain Syndrome Tracker and Community
Post-mastectomy pain syndrome (PMPS) affects a significant subset of mastectomy patients with severe, prolonged neuropathic pain — yet it remains under-recognized, under-treated, and under-studied, partly because patients lack tools to track their symptoms and communicate their experience to providers.
Build a mobile app and web platform for women experiencing post-mastectomy pain syndrome that combines symptom tracking, community support, and provider communication tools. The symptom tracker would capture pain type, location, intensity, triggers, and impact on daily activities over time, generating longitudinal charts patients can share with their pain management or surgical teams. A body map interface would let users indicate the specific distribution of their symptoms (chest wall, armpit, upper arm, phantom breast).
The community layer would connect PMPS patients with each other and with vetted information about treatment options (nerve blocks, physical therapy, gabapentinoids, TENS units). A provider finder would help users locate pain management specialists with breast cancer experience. An anonymized symptom database would let researchers understand the natural history and treatment responses in this understudied condition.
PMPS affects an estimated 20-50% of mastectomy patients to varying degrees and can severely impact quality of life for years. Despite this, there is no dedicated patient-facing resource or symptom tracking tool — patients often have to fight to be believed and have their pain taken seriously. A tracking tool that generates objective, longitudinal symptom records would give patients data to advocate for themselves and contribute to research that remains limited by lack of real-world symptom data.
Who Is This For?
Women who have undergone mastectomy and experience chronic pain, breast cancer surgeons and pain management specialists who need better patient-reported outcome tools, and PMPS researchers.
Skills & Tools Needed
- Mobile and web application development (React Native or similar)
- UX design for chronic pain tracking interfaces
- Healthcare data privacy compliance (HIPAA)
- Medical writing for patient education content
- Community platform design and moderation
Feasibility
medium — Patient symptom tracking apps are a well-understood category; the main challenges are regulatory compliance for health data, achieving adoption in the target community, and designing symptom scales with clinical validity.
Inspired by: These Women Had Their Breasts Removed to Thwart Cancer. Then Came the Pain.
