Telemedicine generally refers to the use of technology to communicate with patients and provide health care from a distance. Advances in technology, specifically computers, cellphones, and other mobile devices, have facilitated healthcare providers' growing ability to virtually monitor and mentor patients. There has been a progressive expansion in the use of telemedicine in the field of gastroenterology (GI), which has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this review, we discuss telemedicine-its history, various forms, and limitations-and its current applications in GI. Specifically, we focus on telemedicine in GI practice in general and specific applications, including the management of inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, and colorectal cancer surveillance and its use as an aid in endoscopic procedures.
To the editor, Liver transplantation (LT) is a life-saving procedure for eligible patients with cirrhosis and/or liver malignancies, yet recipients remain at elevated risk for postoperative morbidity and mortality. Adverse cardiovascular events (CVE) are a key contributor and may be secondary to the underlying drivers of liver disease or associated comorbidities; cardiovascular health is further impacted by perioperative/postoperative stress and long-term effects of immunosuppression. [1] Standard procedures to minimize CVE risk include preoperative evaluation and optimization of cardiac risk. Recent efforts to stratify pretransplant cardiac risk have yielded scoring systems such as Cardiovascular Risk in OLT (CAR-OLT) [2] and Coronary Artery Disease in Liver Transplantation (CAD-LT). [3] Although CAR-OLT was developed specifically to predict 1-year post-LT CVE, CAD-LT was designed to predict significant CAD in the pre-LT setting, though it is plausible that this score could predict post-LT CVE as well. However, both scores were derived and validated in single-institution cohorts and require external validation.
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