This is a continuation of the "Top 10" lists of the decade. The earlier posts are:
Here are the top Medicine / HealthCare News of the last Decade:
1. Affordable Care Act. Access to healthcare is as important to advancement in healthcare. The largest legacy left by President Obama was the passing of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). It was signed into law in March 2010. It mandates that everyone gets health insurance and provided consumers with subsidies ("premium tax credits")
2. HealthCare Technology. Faster handheld computing systems and Electronic Health Records (EHR) has revolutionized patient care and access to health information. There are several examples where technology assist physicians: Augmented Reality helps brain surgeons blend digital imagery with the physical world allowing them to see deeper and reduce errors; Computer monitoring in hospitals help identify and address preventable mistakes; AI Tools help the blind tackle every day tasks; etc.
3. Gene sequencing. While the first whole genome was sequenced in 2000, we are seeing a revolution in genome sequencing (revealing the order of bases present in the entire genome of an organism. Note: The human genome contains about 3 billion base pairs that spell the instructions for making and maintaining a human being) with dramatic increases in speed coupled with massive reductions in cost. It has proved its usefulness as a diagnostic and prognostic tool.
4. Gene editing. Genome editing is the deliberate alteration of a selected DNS sequence in a living cell. This is done by cutting a stand of DNA at a specific point and allowing naturally existing cellular repair mechanisms to fix the broken DNA strands. One key technology for gene editing (discovered in 2012) is a molecular tool known an CRISPR-Cas9 (Clustered Regularly Interspaces Short Palindromic Repeats). Researchers believe that CRISPR could revolutionize how they prevent and treat many diseases.
5. Stem Cell Research. Definition: Embryonic stem cells have the potential to develop into any part of the body. As an embryo grows, most cells become specialized. This means they change into a specific part of the body, such as heart muscle cells, red blood cells or liver cells. While the first human embryonic stem cells were grown in a laboratory dish (in vitro) as early as 1998, researchers are now able to scale up the generation of red blood cells from stem cells to make a limitless supply of clean blood for transfusion. Since stem cells can be guided into becoming specific cells, they can be used to regenerate and repair diseased or damaged tissue.
6. Robotic Surgery. This allows doctors to perform complex procedures with more precision, flexibility and control than possible using conventional techniques. It is a "minimally invasive" surgery - meaning that instead of operating with large incisions, the miniaturized surgical instruments used fit through quarter-inch incisions. Again, while we have had robotic surgery for many years, advances in robotic surgery range from the development of more accurate planning tools and software, to increased automation of tasks during surgery.
7. 3D Printing. Human organs have been artificially built using 3D printing procedures for planned organ substitution. While the first human blood vessels were 3D bio-printed in 2009, in the last decade we have seen advancement in 3D printing technology that enable production of bones, ears, exoskeletons, windpipes, blood vessels, vascular networks, tissues and simple organs. We are not quite at the point where the human heart can be 3D printed. This day is not too far away.
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