Oura ring signals cancer months before doctors diagnose

Casey Cattie credits her wearable ring with alerting her to Hodgkin lymphoma before medical tests confirmed it.

Oura ring signals cancer months before doctors diagnose

In April last year Casey Cattie began waking up soaked in sweat with no clear reason. She wore an Oura Ring to bed and checked the data each morning. The ring flagged overnight temperature spikes and other signs of illness, though her initial bloodwork was normal. She visited several doctors over months, including a hematologist oncologist, but no cancer was found.

Eight months after the ring first warned her, while on a birthday trip to Iceland, she felt breathless and was diagnosed with cancer after scans showed a pleural effusion and enlarged lymph nodes. A PET scan lit up, confirming Stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma. She began chemotherapy and immunotherapy every two weeks and says the ring still signals when she is unwell after treatment.

The case shows how wearables can act as an early warning system. They can prompt people to seek care sooner, potentially catching serious conditions that routine tests miss. But they cannot replace medical evaluation or definitive tests.

There is a risk of overreliance on devices and of doctors dismissing patient concerns when data from wearables contradicts symptoms. This story suggests a shift toward patient driven data in healthcare, but it also calls for clear guidelines on how to incorporate such signals into care.

Highlights

As wearables become more common, clinicians and patients will need clear paths from alert to action.