Telehealth model may help manage patients with pseudotumor cerebri
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Key takeaways:
- A telehealth model had a high agreement rate with actual visits in patients with pseudotumor cerebri.
- When frontal visits are difficult, telehealth may be a viable substitute.
A remote telehealth model was suitable for managing patients with pseudotumor cerebri, according to a poster presented at the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society meeting.
“Pseudotumor cerebri (PTC) is a syndrome that requires frequent monitoring and long-term follow-up due to the chronicity of the disease and the risk of vision loss,” Shai Cohen, MD, and colleagues wrote. “The shortage in neuro-ophthalmologists, along with the high burden of frequent visits, as well as situations as pandemic contagious disease, raise the need to establish a telemedicine model for follow-up and treatment of PTC patients.”
Cohen and colleagues compared actual frontal visit recommendations and same physician recommendations based on only a telehealth visit and evaluated the agreement rate. The analysis included 63 visits from 63 patients.
The mean time from diagnosis was 45 months; 41 patients were under current medical therapy during the visit while 22 were off treatment. The most common drug was acetazolamide in 95% of patients.
The agreement rate between the frontal and telehealth visits was 87.5%.
“In this cohort, telemedicine-guided treatment and follow-up was found to result in similar treatment decisions for PTC patients compared to frontal visit,” Cohen and colleagues wrote. “It seems that in most cases, when circumstances make frontal visits impossible, remote telemedicine can be a suitable substitute.”
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Cohen S, et al. Pseudotumor cerebri patients can be managed remotely by an OCT-based telemedicine model. Presented at: North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society meeting; March 11-16, 2023; Orlando, Florida.
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