The lancet oncology
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The lancet oncology · Feb 2010
Teleoncology: current and future applications for improving cancer care globally.
Access to quality cancer care is often unavailable in low-income and middle-income countries, and also in rural or remote areas of high-income countries. Teleoncology-oncology applications of medical telecommunications, including pathology, radiology, and other related disciplines-has the potential to enhance access to and quality of clinical cancer care, and to improve education and training. ⋯ Teleoncology can best achieve its proposed goals through consistent and long-term application. We review teleoncology initiatives that have the potential to decrease cancer-care inequality between resource-poor and resource-rich institutions and offer guidelines for the development of teleoncology programmes in low-income and middle-income countries.