People with chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) have abnormalities in Quantitative Sensory Test (QST) findings. However, the predictive utility of QST for the early detection of CIPN in individuals has not been demonstrated. This will require longitudinal QST during chemotherapy treatments. However, QST is time-consuming, requires expertise and complex, costly equipment which has largely prevented its adoption in routine clinical practice. We aimed to assess approaches to develop a reliable, straightforward, time efficient and sensitive sensory testing method. Guided by patient partner input and previous literature, we selected thermal and vibration detection thresholds as target QST parameters. A series of iterative experiments was conducted to determine the optimal body test site and to develop a novel vibration testing protocol. The thenar eminence emerged as the best candidate due to higher sensitivity to all stimulus modalities, lower variance and less age-related change compared to the feet. We demonstrated significant differences in thermal thresholds between healthy participants and people with CIPN measured at the thenar but not the feet. The vibration testing protocol, employing a linear resonant actuator, performed better than a calibrated tuning fork being sufficiently sensitive to identify age-related and body site differences in sensory function well as tracking sensory loss induced by local anaesthetic nerve block. These findings establish a testing framework to deliver QST at a single convenient body site with a reduced set of modalities to efficiently track multifibre sensory function for patients at risk of developing neuropathy.

AEP declares consultancy work for Lateral Pharma and has a research grant from Eli Lilly on an unrelated topic. All other authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

The SenseCheQ research project was funded as part of the Advanced Pain Discovery Platform by a consortium made up of UKRI MRC, Versus Arthritis, and Eli Lilly all coordinated by the MRC [MR/W027925/1]. BT was also supported by an APDP grant as part of the Partnership for Assessment and Investigation of Neuropathic Pain: Studies Tracking Outcomes, Risks and Mechanisms (PAINSTORM) consortium [MR/W002388/1].

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Ethical approval was obtained from the University of Bristol Research Ethics Committee for healthy participant studies (project ID:9994). For patient studies, ethical approval was obtained from Health Research Authority and Health and Care Research Wales (IRAS project ID: 327541).

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Anonymized data and R markdown code for reproducing analyses is available on the Open Science Framework at http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/F5T82.

http://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/F5T82