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Background/aim: Telemedicine, the remote delivery of healthcare services, represents a great opportunity for cancer pain management. A care model of telemedicine that combines remote visits and hospital access could be an effective and safe strategy for pain management of cancer patients., Patients and Methods: A retrospective study was conducted using the dataset of the telemedicine program at the Istituto Nazionale Tumori of Naples, Italy for assessing the efficacy of a telehealth-based model of care. Demographic, clinical, and process variables were investigated., Results: A total of 226 cases and 489 visits were included in the analysis. The mean age of patients was 63.4 years (SD=12.4 years), and no sex differences were observed. Approximately 55% of patients were ECOG-PS ≤2 and 87% suffered from metastatic disease. More than half of the patients were treated with high doses of opioids. Each patient had a mean of 2 remote visits and half of the patients had more than 1 telehealth consultation. The dropout ratio was 5.3%. Most visits (n=472) were conducted on patients in the Campania Region, Italy. The maximum covered distance from the Cancer Center and the patients' location was 555.22 Km. A significant difference in the overall number of visits (p=0.006) and the number of pro-capita remote visits (p=0.010) was found, in favor of the group of patients treated before the end of the Covid-19 emergency in Italy, compared to those treated after the pandemic., Conclusion: Despite various positive outcomes, the analysis highlights several weaknesses, such as the need to assist patients with advanced and non-advanced disease located outside the regional territory. Overall, the telehealth processes should be adapted to post-pandemic scenarios towards their implementation in routine clinical practice., (Copyright © 2023, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic would have particularly affected acute stroke care. However, its impact is clearly inherent to the local stroke network conditions. We aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on acute stroke care in the Lyon comprehensive stroke center during this period., Methods: We conducted a prospective data collection of patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) treated with intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) and/or mechanical thrombectomy (MT) during the COVID-19 period (from 29/02/2020 to 10/05/2020) and a control period (from 29/02/2019 to 10/05/2019). The volume of reperfusion therapies and pre and intra-hospital delays were compared during both periods., Results: A total of 208 patients were included. The volume of IVT significantly decreased during the COVID-period [55 (54.5%) vs 74 (69.2%); p = 0.03]. The volume of MT remains stable over the two periods [72 (71.3%) vs 65 (60.8%); p = 0.14], but the door-to-groin puncture time increased in patients transferred for MT (237 [187-339] vs 210 [163-260]; p < 0.01). The daily number of Emergency Medical Dispatch calls considerably increased (1502 [1133-2238] vs 1023 [960-1410]; p < 0.01)., Conclusions: Our study showed a decrease in the volume of IVT, whereas the volume of MT remained stable although intra-hospital delays increased for transferred patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. These results contrast in part with the national surveys and suggest that the impact of the pandemic may depend on local stroke care networks.