The study of medicine has accompanied mankind's evolution since the earliest forms of healthcare. No matter the culture, tribe, or people group there have been various and steady innovations through a combination of the sciences to create new means by which to care for human health.
For the majority of human history, however, these innovations were limited to the technologies of the times. With the advancements incurred as a result of industrialization and the inventions of electricity, the invention of medicinal techniques that incorporate those technologies in nursing and medical care have been powerful combinations. What has emerged in the last few decades, however, with the new and increasingly impressive analytical ability of computers and their software, new ideas that were science fiction just a generation ago have become real life. Technology is inseparably tied to the future of healthcare.
Wherever one looks nowadays, a new technique for diagnosing diseases, developing new medicines, or understanding how the body works, medicine has taken the miraculous and made it commonplace.
While the pandemic had some tragic and astoundingly stressful influences on the world, human beings, as we always do, battled a terrible situation with a resolve that saw us through. What came out of the pandemic was an increase not only in an understanding of how diseases spread and how individual cultures respond to crises, but a determination to overcome health care issues with a fervor to set new standards.
The pandemic accelerated the digitization of and integration of technology into every aspect of the healthcare systems worldwide, so much so that nearly 80% of healthcare providers have planned to increase their budgeting for new technology and digital solutions in the next five years. With such tenacity or motivation and investment capital, the world will continue to see advancements in areas like genomics, cloud computing, diagnosis, treatments, and patient care.
These advancements are especially important in the development of technologies which can lead to better screening for some of the most expensive diseases to treat. The following are two examples of how the future of technology will affect healthcare in powerful and positive ways.
Two of the Most Expensive Diseases and Their Emerging Treatment Technologies
Cancer
The feared and dreaded diagnosis has been plaguing humanity for longer than we have even had a word for its various forms. While the survival rate for cancer patients has doubled in the last 40 years due to a myriad of innovations, discoveries, and technologies, cancer still costs our nation around $157 billion per year in medical costs. The cost of cancer medications has doubled, in many respects, and this is a great concern to families and policy makers.
Fortunately, what once seemed impossible is now an emerging reality thanks to the combined efforts of scientists, researchers, and technicians all over the world. The continued exploration and experimentation with these technologies has accelerated progress in the battle against the long-standing medical giant. Here are a few ways in which new technologies are helping in the fight.
CRISPR
CRISPR stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. (Yes, quite a mouthful.). In layman's language CRISPR seeks to identify and thus target specific segments of genetic code in living cells that may be damaged or infected by cancerous markers. CRISPR, works like a pair of microscopically accurate scissors that can select, delete, insert, and edit select bits on DNA inside cells.
The technology, developed by DR’s. Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier won a Nobel Prize in 2020 for their work. While this has unlocked huge implications for cancer treatments, there are still limitations and ethical debates surrounding the use of the technology. Regardless, this technology is a new and powerful tool.
Cryo-EM
Camera technology has exploded in the last decade. Much of this is due to the demand, and now availability, of better quality photos and access for use on smartphones, but the technology has a myriad of other uses in other industries. One of those technological derivatives is called Cryo-electron microscopy (Cryo-EM).
Cryo-Em takes photos of molecules that are less than ten-one thousandth of a hair width, at astounding resolutions. Researchers then analyze these photos using imaging to reconstruct the composition and behaviors of cancer cells. This means that we are learning to better understand how cancer cells survive, grow, and interact with other cells and even the therapies used to destroy them.
Static Droplet Microfluidic Device
Researchers at the University of Technology at Sydney have developed a new device that detects and analyzes cancer cells from blood samples, which empowers doctors to forgo painful and complex biopsies. The Static Droplet Microfluidic device enables the rapid detection of tumor cells that have broken off of primary tumor cells and entered the body's blood stream.
Using a specific metabolic signature technique, it can show the difference between cancer cells and regular, tainted blood cells.
Diabetes
The American Diabetes Association reports that over 29 million people suffer from diabetes in the United States. The majority of people suffer from type II diabetes which primarily affects overweight adults. The total average annual cost of diabetes treatment in the U.S. runs between $245 — $176 billion in medical costs. Considered a “silent killer”, diabetes kills around 1.5 million people globally, annually.
As the 7th leading cause of death worldwide, according to the World Health Organization, new and novel approaches to diagnosis and treatment of this disease are important.
The Scout DS Device
This technology enables more mass screenings for diabetes. Using visible light, it detects and measures advanced glycation end-products and other biomarkers in the skin that are associated with pre-diabetes and Type II. The device is non-invasive and painless.
The Breath Test Approach
Developed by researchers at the University of Oxford, this handheld device can detect the presence of acetone in breath. This marker for diabetes is detected by a laser which analyzes the results helping to monitor and diagnose diabetes cases.
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