[Contribution of telemedicine applied to digestive cancer]

Telemedicine offers new possibilities for multidisciplinary care of cancer patients, allowing direct communications between different, complementary and geographically distant specialists. Thus, it is possible to form oncology committees in small hospitals where all specialties are not represented. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the medical and economic impact of visioconferences in the therapeutic management of cancer patients without access to oncology centers.

A telemedicine network was created in Paris between the General Surgery and Gastroenterology services of Rothschild Hospital and the services of Oncology at Saint-Antoine Hospital and Radiotherapy at Tenon Hospital. The three hospitals were connected simultaneously (multipoint) by visioconference and thus constituted a pluridisciplinary oncology committee of radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery. Eighty seven cases were evaluated in 27 staff conferences. In 48 cases, this consisted of re-evaluating therapeutic decisions made in surgery or gastroenterology, and in 39 cases opinions were requested by surgery (18), gastroenterology (14) or oncology departments (7).

In only 34/87 cases therapeutic agreement was reached directly. The 53 other cases (60.9%) were debated. In fact, all 39 requests for opinion in difficult therapeutic decisions resulted in consensus. Among the 48 re-evaluations, disagreement persisted in one case between the surgeon in charge of the patient and the chemotherapist. Importantly, in 13 of 48 cases (27%), the discussion modified the therapeutic protocol initially proposed. The average cost was 118 French Francs per case and per center. Total initial investment was 334,762 French Francs, but the price of some equipment has already dropped from 30 to 60%.

In our study, the visioconference improved management of cancer patients for a weak working cost.