I read an interesting article all about medical advances in 2011, and I thought I would pick out a couple to share with you…

1.     Pneumatic drill that can clear blocked arteries: A tiny vibrating device that breaks up hard deposits in leg arteries. Blocked arteries in the legs, or peripheral arterial disease (PAD), affect one in five men and one in eight women aged over 50. It’s estimated that PAD results in 100 amputations a week in Britain, mostly in diabetics with poor blood circulation. The usual treatment is to insert a thin tube into the main artery in the thigh and feed through a wire to try to break through the blockage. But if the deposit has hardened, the wire often cannot penetrate, and patients face surgery or amputation. The tip of the wire on the new device vibrates 20,000 times a second. This punches a hole through the middle of the deposit, allowing doctors to inflate a tiny balloon to displace the blockage. Each procedure costs around £1,000 and the technology is being rolled out to NHS hospitals.

2.     New tablets for prostate cancer: For men with advanced prostate ­cancer, where the tumour has spread to other parts of the body, the only option is chemotherapy to slow the spread. However, this has toxic side-effects such as fatigue, nausea and hair loss. But a new tablet is due to be launched later this year that not only extends ­survival, but has fewer side-effects. Abiraterone, a once-a-day pill ­developed at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, has far milder side effects.  In tests on men whose cancer had stopped responding to all other treatments, the drug extended average survival from 10.9 months to 14.8 months.

3.     New anti-inflammatory arthritis drug: Non-steroidal ­anti-inflammatories, or NSAIDs, are one of the main treatments used in rheumatoid arthritis and ­osteoarthritis, which affect around 1.5 million people in Britain. The best known is aspirin. The problem is these tablets can be harsh on the stomach.  Patients are usually also prescribed another type of drug to stop stomach acid being produced (a proton pump inhibitor), but many forget or don’t bother to take it. Now a new drug that combats this problem is expected to become widely available in 2011. Called Vimovo, it was recently approved for use in Britain and combines an anti-inflammatory with a proton pump inhibitor, esomeprazole. When the new drug is swallowed, it first releases a dose of ­esomeprazole. Only when this has had time to stop the production of acid is the anti-inflammatory then released, several minutes later. It is likely to be given to patients who need higher doses of NSAIDs

4.     Early lung cancer predictor: A blood test that predicts lung cancer up to five years before symptoms emerge is due to launch in the next few months. It is expected to be followed by a range of similar blood tests that will be able to identify breast, ­ovarian, bowel and prostate cancer victims long before they fall ill. The test is based on the fact that as soon as cancer cells start to develop, and long before the patient notices any symptoms, the immune system starts to release antibodies, ‘soldier’ cells, that patrol the bloodstream trying to kill off malignant invaders. The new lung cancer test, which has already been launched in the U.S., measures levels of six ­specific antibodies known to be linked to lung cancer.

I will share more information on these developments as I hear more…

Tags: health news, lung cancer, peripheral arterial disease, prostate cancer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011 at 2:06 pm and is filed under Travel Health News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.