Successful Management of Pheochromocytoma and Thyroiditis With Fever by Telemedicine During the COVID-19 Pandemic

A Tale of Two Hypersecreting Adrenal Neoplasms in the Heartland of COVID-19 Pandemic, Lombardy, Italy

“…e unusual circumstances created by the pandemic necessitated a more prolonged preoperative period of medical management, as already described in other 4 cases recently reported [6,7]. At last, the adrenal tumor was successfully resected after a prolonged pharmacologic control of blood pressure, and the patient is doing well off antihypertensive treatment.…”

The Use of Telemedicine in the Preoperative Care of Pheochromocytoma: A Systematic Review

“…The majority of studies did not report legal or technical obstacles in their experiences with patients who accepted TM visits [5,10,11,13]. However, when managing younger patients, a legal guardian's approval will be required, as reported in one article where the author acknowledged that they had to discuss the follow-up with the patient's mother [12].…”

“…Moreover, TM adds flexibility to preoperative follow-ups, which vary from three weeks to 40 weeks [5,10,11,12]. The variation in the time of the preoperative follow-up was reported to be due to the COVID-19 infection in Japp et al's second case [5] or waiting for the adrenal hematoma to resolve in Zampetti et al's case [11].…”

“…The three studies, i.e., Japp et al, Run, and Saksa et al, all used video-synchronous TM for their initial evaluation [5,12,13]. The others used the regular physical encounter for the initial assessment of a new patient.…”

“…A few studies reported the use of TM in preoperative care for PCC. Preoperative preparation and titration of antihypertensive medications through TM have demonstrated less need for preoperative visits [10], a decreased risk of infection [5,11,12], and high safety in the management of complex cases [11,13].…”