Telemedicine in lung cancer during COVID-19 outbreak: A scoping review

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has negatively affected the medical services, particularly cancer diagnosis and treatment, for vulnerable cancer patients. Although lung cancer has a high mortality rate, monitoring and following up of these patients can help to improve disease management during the pandemic. Telemedicine has proven to be an effective method of providing health care to these patients. As a result, the purpose of this study was to identify telemedicine applications in the management of lung cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this scoping review, studies published in online scientific databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed between January 1, 2020 and September 1, 2021 were systematically searched and screened. The studies were chosen using predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The bibliometric information and technological aspects of included studies were collected using a data extraction form and the data was analyzed using the content analysis approach. A total of 68 articles were found, from which four articles were finally selected based on specific inclusion/exclusion criteria. Real-time consultation was one of the most common applications of telemedicine to deliver health-care services to cancer patients. Health-care providers used applications such as Zoom, Facetime, WeChat, and e-mail, as well as devices including PCs, phones, and smartphones to provide real-time consultation to patients via videoconferencing, phone calls, and messaging, as well as store and forward consultation via e-mail. Telemedicine in the COVID-19 pandemic provides health-care services to lung cancer patients at their homes by enabling physicians and patients to communicate in real time. Several telemedicine services are still unavailable for patients with lung cancer. As a result, health experts, politicians, and entrepreneurs must pay special attention to this issue.