Which are the up-and-coming technologies and which will have the biggest impact on healthcare in 2015?
This book was developed to share outside Cleveland Clinic what our clinical leaders are saying to each other and what innovations they feel will help shape healthcare over the next 12 months.
1. Mobile Stroke Treatment Unit
Each year in the United States, nearly 800,000 people suffer a stroke, or a brain attack. This occurs when an artery that supplies blood to part of the brain becomes blocked or ruptures and leads to bleeding in the brain. In ischemic strokes, a blood clot is the triggering event, while the remaining 10 percent of strokes are called hemorrhagic and a burst blood vessel or aneurysm is typically the cause.
2. Dengue Vaccine
All it takes is one bite: Dengue is a debilitating virus that’s transmitted to humans by the bite of an Aedes aegypti mosquito that has previously bitten a person infected with the dengue virus.
3. The New Art of Blood Collection and Diagnosis
With the advent of science, blood became a key diagnostic element. Withdrawn from the body, it was isolated and studied. Today, phlebotomy, the process of opening a vein and collecting blood for testing and diagnosis, is regularly used to measure cells, lipids, proteins, sugars, hormones, tumor markers and other blood components.
4. PCSK9 Inhibitors for Cholesterol Reduction
Cholesterol, a soft, waxy substance present in cells throughout the body, serves many important functions. However, elevated levels of certain forms of cholesterol are some of the primary drivers in the development of coronary heart disease.
5. Antibody Drug Conjugates
Scientists have learned more about cancer in the last two decades than had been learned in all the centuries preceding. And even though one million people in the United States develop cancer annually, tremendous advances have been made in cancer biology that have led to significant progress not only in cancer prevention and early detection but in cancer treatment as well.
6. Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors
The immune system’s collection of organs, special cells, and molecules is on constant alert to protect us from dangerous infection and disease and keep us healthy. It responds to antigens, or foreign bodies, in a highly coordinated process that employs several types of cells to circulate around the body, scanning for cellular abnormalities and infections.
7. Leadless Cardiac Pacemaker
The adult heart usually beats between 60 and 100 times a minute at rest, but if a person has bradycardia, a slower than normal heart rate, it indicates a problem with the heart’s electrical system.
8. New Medications for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis
The lungs are remarkable organs made of spongy tissue that supply oxygen, the life-sustaining gas needed by the body. As the only internal organs that are exposed to the external environment, they are vulnerable to a variety of ailments. Some, like asthma, bronchitis, or even certain cancers, can be cured. However, when it comes to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, or IPF, eventual death is a certainty unless the lungs are replaced.
9. Intraoperative Radiation Therapy for Breast Cancer
The American Cancer Society estimates that this year about 233,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer will occur among women in the United States. In addition, approximately 63,000 new cases of noninvasive breast cancer—the earliest form—will occur among women in 2014. It’s also projected that 40,000 women will die from breast cancer this year.
10. Angiotensin-Receptor Neprilysin Inhibitor for Heart Failure
Heart failure is caused by a weakening of the heart’s ability to pump blood. Between 500,000 and 900,000 new cases of heart failure are diagnosed each year in the United States. This debilitating ailment is now the most common diagnosis in Medicare patients and accounts for 55,000 deaths annually.
