Systematic review of telemonitoring in COPD: an update

Telemedicine may support individual care plans in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), potentially improving the clinical outcomes. To-date there is no clear evidence of benefit of telemedicine in this patients. The aim of this study is to provide an update on the effectiveness of telemedicine in reducing adverse clinical outcomes. We searched the Pubmed database for articles published between January 2005 and December 2014. We included only randomized controlled trials exclusively focused on patients with COPD and with a telemedicine intervention arm. Evaluated outcomes were number of exacerbations, ER visits, COPD hospitalizations, length of stay and death. We eventually included 12 randomized controlled trials. Most of them had a small sample size and was of poor quality, with a wide heterogeneity in the parameters and technologies used. Most studies reported a positive effect of telemonitoring on hospitalization for any cause, with risk reductions between 10% and 63%; however only three studies reached statistical significance. The same trend was observed for COPD-related hospital admission and ER visits. No significative effects of telemedicine was evidenced in reducing length of hospital stay, improving quality of life and reducing deaths. In conclusion, our study confirms that the available evidence on the effectiveness of telemedicine in COPD does not allow to draw definite conclusions; most evidence suggests a positive effect of telemonitoring on hospital admissions and ER visits. More trials with adequate sample size and with adequate consideration of background clinical services are needed to definitively establish its effectiveness.