Siddiqui, Sameer

Introduction: With the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic causing the need for social distancing, telemedicine saw a significant increase in use to provide routine medical care. As a field, physiatry had already been implementing telemedicine prior to the pandemic. In this study, we characterized the use of telemedicine among physiatrists during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic to understand the barriers and facilitators to implementing telemedicine use in the field of physiatry in the future. Methods: Online survey of a cross-sectional sample of physiatrists. Analysis was conducted using logistic regression. Results: One hundred seventy one ( n = 171) participants completed the survey. Before the pandemic, only 17.5% of respondents used telemedicine. In the logistic regression, physicians who used a hospital-provided platform were more likely to use telemedicine in the future compared with those who used their own secure platform, conducted a phone visit, and used a non-secure platform or other platforms. The three most popular barriers identified were “inability to complete the physical examination,” “patients lack of access to technology,” and “patients lack of familiarity with the technology.” Discussion: Focus on education on telemedicine functional examination strategies and technology strategies for patients and providers (including addressing the digital divide and hospital-provided secure platforms) are potential targets of implementation strategies for greater telemedicine uptake for physiatrists in the future.

5117 Background: Prognostic nomograms, scoring tools, and risk tables are rapidly accumulating in the prostate cancer (PCa) literature. It is not always clear to whom these tools should apply and how well they predict the outcomes they were designed to forecast. There is need for independent evaluation of these tools. Methods: We used the Mayo Clinic Radical Prostatectomy Registry, a prospective database of radical prostatectomy (RP) outcomes, to assess tools designed to predict RP outcomes. The validation set included 13,313 RP patients from 1990–2005. There were 3,256 PSA failures, 566 metastases, and 1,599 deaths (301 were due to PCa). We assessed the discrimination, calibration and overall accuracy of prediction tools identified through a structured Pubmed search. Results: Tools varied greatly in terms of complexity, width of prediction interval, and method of presentation. Several tools included non-standard variables and were therefore unevaluable, despite an extensive dataset, leaving the 1999 and 2005 Kattan nomograms, the 1998 and 2001 CDPR scores, and the 2001 GPSM score for analysis. Discrimination (quantitated by the c index) was better for PCa-specific survival and metastases than for PSA failure ( Table ). Kaplan-Meier plots demonstrated clustering of risk groups in most tools, most severely in the higher risk groups of the Kattan nomograms. The calibration plots of most tools (excepting GPSM) had a serious discordance between observed and predicted outcomes in the lower probability ranges. This meant that most tools gravely overestimated the probability of RP failure in high-risk patients, by up to 4- fold. Conclusions: The tools showed moderate discriminatory ability for PSA failure but performed much better for non-surrogate outcomes. Most tools (excepting GPSM) were miscalibrated in high risk patients and dramatically underestimated the efficacy of surgery in this cohort. Prognostic tools may not be as accurate as previously reported. [Table: see text] No significant financial relationships to disclose.

AbstractPurpose: Regulatory T cells (Tregs) have been implicated as inhibitors of antitumoral immunity, and evidence suggests that elimination of Tregs may augment natural and pharmacologic immunity. We tested for the presence of putative Tregs within renal cell carcinoma (RCC) tumors.Experimental Design: We identified 170 patients who underwent radical or partial nephrectomy for clear cell RCC between 2000 and 2002. Specimens were stained with anti-CD4, anti-CD25, and anti-Foxp3 antibodies and examined using confocal microscopy. Associations of CD4+CD25+Foxp3− and CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ T cells with death from RCC were evaluated using Cox proportional hazards regression models.Results: At last follow-up, 46 of 170 patients had died; of these, 37 died from RCC at a median of 1.4 years following nephrectomy (range, 0-4.4). Among the 124 remaining patients, median follow-up was 3.7 years (range, 0-5.7). Forty-three (25.3%) tumors harbored CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ T cells. The presence of Foxp3+ T cells was not significantly associated with RCC death univariately. One hundred forty-three (84.1%) tumors harbored CD4+CD25+Foxp3− T cells. The indicator for ≥10% CD4+CD25+Foxp3− T cells was significantly associated with RCC death univariately [risk ratio (RR), 2.60; 95% confidence interval (95% CI), 1.35-4.98; P = 0.004], after adjusting for tumor B7-H1 expression (RR, 2.53; 95% CI, 1.32-4.85; P = 0.005) and lymphocytic infiltration (RR, 2.53; 95% CI, 1.32-4.87; P = 0.005).Conclusions: Increased presence of CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ T cells was not significantly associated with RCC death. In contrast, CD4+CD25+Foxp3− T cells, which may represent a unique set of Tregs or activated helper T cells, was significantly associated with outcome.