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Gold September Spotlight: AI, Digital Health, and the Future of Pediatric Oncology Nursing

By Dr Hazal Ozdemir Koyu, Gazi University Nursing Faculty-Türkiye
Introduction 

Gold September is the global awareness month for childhood cancer. The gold ribbon honors children’s courage while spotlighting innovations that elevate both the scientific and human sides of care. From a pediatric oncology nursing perspective, artificial intelligence (AI) and digital health are transforming diagnosis, treatment, symptom management, and psychosocial support—raising the quality, safety, and continuity of care. 

Why It Matters 
  • Globally, an estimated 400,000 children and adolescents (0–19 years) are diagnosed with cancer each year (WHO, 2025). 
  • Despite improving survival, 60–70% of survivors experience late effects or chronic health issues. Data-driven, proactive, family-centered, and personalized care is therefore essential. 
What AI and Digital Solutions Deliver 
  • Diagnosis and risk stratification: Integrating imaging, genomics, and clinical data to enable faster and more accurate classification and precision medicine approaches (Landier et al., 2023; Connor et al., 2024; Zhang et al., 2024). 
  • Treatment optimization and early warning: AI analysis of vitals, labs, and symptom reports to predict and alert for complications such as neutropenic fever or sepsis (Dupuis et al., 2025; Marchak et al., 2024). 
  • Nursing workflows: Clinical decision support systems that bolster medication safety, streamline documentation, and free up more time at the bedside (Wen et al., 2024; Youssef et al., 2025). 
  • Remote monitoring and psychosocial support: Wearables, mobile apps, telehealth, and AI-enabled chatbots for continuous symptom tracking, pain/mucositis management, education, and emotional support (Baggott et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2024; Ganguly et al., 2025). 
Impact from the Nursing Perspective 
  • Strengthened clinical roles: Better protocol navigation, adverse effect surveillance, and earlier recognition of deterioration. 
  • Family education and advocacy: Age-appropriate digital education, improved coordination of transitions between hospital and home. 
  • Data literacy: Greater digital competencies enable more personalized, standardized, and equitable care. 
Ethics and Equity 
  • Privacy and security: Robust protection of children’s sensitive health data—especially genomics—alongside transparent, accountable, and explainable AI (Wen et al., 2024; Youssef et al., 2025). 
  • The digital divide: Ensure affordable, accessible solutions for low- and middle-income settings and rural communities to prevent widening disparities (Ganguly et al., 2025). 
  • Human-centered design: AI should complement, not replace, nursing judgment and therapeutic relationships; prioritize explainability to reduce the “black box” effect. 
Future Directions and Research Priorities 
  • Multimodal analytics for early symptom detection. 
  • AI-supported coordination for home-based care and safe hospital-to-home transitions. 
  • Risk prediction models for late effects and long-term follow-up. 
  • Sustainable integration via Learning Health Systems and the Technology–Human–Organization–Process lens (Connor et al., 2024; Youssef et al., 2025). 
  • Education: Update nursing curricula and simulation programs to strengthen AI/digital literacy (Zhang et al., 2024; Wyatt et al., 2024). 
A Gold September Call to Action 
  • Clinical practice: Embed digital symptom monitoring; validate pediatric-specific early-warning thresholds. 
  • Education: Add modules on AI ethics, data governance, and explainability to nursing training. 
  • Policy: Advance protections for pediatric data and promote fair access to digital health. 
  • Community: Pair the gold ribbon message with digital equity and child-centered design. 
Conclusion 

In the spirit of Gold September, AI and digital health hold real promise to improve outcomes, reduce treatment burden, and enhance family experience in pediatric oncology. Realizing this promise depends on nursing digital competencies, ethical and transparent technologies, equitable access, and learning systems that keep models clinically relevant. Let the gold ribbon symbolize not only awareness but technology aligned with compassion. 

 

REFERENCES 
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