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Título

TELEMEDICINE IN UROLOGY CANCER HOSPITAL: A RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW OF 420 PATIENTS

Resumo

Telemedicine emerges as a powerful tool for improving healthcare accessibility, connecting remote areas with central healthcare services. In Brazil, telemedicine regulations were implemented in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, aiming to reduce in-person visits and minimize virus transmission. The widespread adoption of telemedicine during the pandemic, driven by the goal of ensuring safety, reveals its broader potential beyond the crisis. This paper focuses on evaluating telemedicine in urology during the pandemic, analyzing data from 420 virtual consultations to assess effectiveness, challenges, demographic characteristics, encountered obstacles, and the need for in-person care. We performed a retrospective review of 420 urological telemedicine consultations during the COVID-19 pandemic at a tertiary cancer hospital, conducted from June 3rd, 2020, to July 14th, 2021, after ethic institutional review board approval. The study focused on a single urologist assessing patients with urological cancer diagnoses. Data collected included age, gender, distance from the hospital, neoplasm diagnosis, encountered difficulties, unsuccessful calls, and conversions to in-person care when required physical examination or technical difficulties. Results show that most patients were male (92.1% vs 7.9%), aged 71 (67 – 78) years, with prostate cancer as the predominant diagnosis (78.3%), follow by bladder cancer (8,8%) and kidney cancer (6,9%). They were primarily undergoing post-treatment follow-up (92.4% vs 7,6%) and residing at a median distance of 74 (15 – 96) km from the hospital. Challenges included the lack of laboratory (8,6%) and imaging exams (4,1%), along with unsuccessful phone calls (5,7%) and technical issues (1%). Nine patients (2.14%) required a conversion to in-person care, mainly due to the need for physical examinations or medical procedures. Just one patient opts to conversion for in-person care. Telemedicine successfully provided urological care to oncologic patients, with technical difficulties and the need for physical examinations being the main reasons for conversion to in-person assessments.