Abstract
Italy and worldwide are experiencing an outbreak of a new coronavirus-related disease, named COVID-19, declared by the WHO COVID-19 a pandemic. The fragility of cancer patients is well-known, with many cases affecting aged patients or those with several comorbidities that frequently result in a loss of independency and functionality. Therefore, cancer patients have been greatly affected by this health emergency and, due to their vulnerability to COVID-19, oncologic patient visits have been often delayed or canceled leading to possible under-treatment. Different solutions can be adopted for reducing travels to cancer screening centers and the overall impact of cancer screening visits. As a consequence, it has been recommended that, when possible, the follow-up visits for cancer patients treated with oral anticancer drugs could be performed telematically. Furthermore, many patients refuse hospital visits, even if necessary, because of fear of contagion. Moreover, in some regions in Italy even the very first non-urgent visits have been postponed with the consequent delay in diagnosis, which may negatively affect disease prognosis. For these reasons, new approaches are needed such as the telemedicine tool. Throughout organized and appropriate tools, it would be possible to manage patients’ visits and treatments, to avoid the dangerous extension of waiting lists when the standard activities will resume. In this context, a number of hospital visits can be substituted with visits at small local health centers, and general practitioners’office, taking in turn, advantage of well-defined telemedicine path which will be developed in the post-emergency phase.
Highlights
EpidemiologyItaly and worldwide are experiencing an outbreak of a new coronavirus-related disease named COVID-19 due to SARS-CoV2 virus
Based on these patients characteristics and the data coming from Protezione Civile indicating that around 20% of cancer deaths from COVID infection occurs in patients with previous cancer or active of cancer [1], a number of actions in the hospitals have been set up to maintain cancer patients out of hospitals when there is no urgent need
It is desirable that this type of experience could produce telematic clinical strategies that will allow, in the Covid19 post-emergency, to continue caring for cancer patients in an appropriate setting where a number of hospital visits are substituted with visits at small local health centers and general practitioners’ office and taking advantage of well-defined telemedicine path which will be developed in this phase
Summary
And worldwide are experiencing an outbreak of a new coronavirus-related disease named COVID-19 due to SARS-CoV2 virus. A recent published document (AIOM, CIPOMO) for COVID19 emergency indicates the need to postpone the follow-up outpatient activities for disease-free patients (e.g., follow-up to 612 months), providing a telephone triage and/or telematic patient rescheduling based on clinical severity [17] This indication opens the opportunity to apply telemedicine methodologies in emergency situations such as the current one and in the post-emergency phase. Computer technology has been extensively applied for immediate record and presentation of PRO results to clinicians, utilizing useful tools for data collection and presentation, already validated and transferable to other fields of clinical activities [22,23,24] This is applicable for research purposes, for symptom screening and patient monitoring thereby contributing to hospital quality assurance. Both age and smoker status seem to poorly impact prognosis of patients affected by COVID-19 [30]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call