News: Trends in Medicine and Biotechnology in 2018
VR in Medicine
Although the virtual reality initially was concerned as a game technology, it has a great future in medicine.
VR gadgets are now used to relieve pain, especially for palliative patients. The first tests in hospitals showed that the use of VR-records with 15-minute videos reduced pain by 13%, and the use of special game programs reduced it by 24%.
Another important therapeutic contribution of VR is the possibility of enhancing rehabilitation of patients with motor disabilities (for example, after a stroke).
Big Data and Artificial Intelligence
Computers have an advantage over human doctors regarding diagnosing due to the fact that they analyze images millions times faster than human doctors. Now AI can diagnose various diseases like depression, Alzheimer’s disease, some types of oncology and glaucoma much faster than the best doctors do.
The programs are ready to replace radiologists and independently analyze the pictures and results of medical surveys. It is also expected that the algorithms will help to calculate treatment programs based on scientific data and patients personal data.
Genome Editing Technologies CAR-T and CRISPR-Cas9
These technologies have been existing for some decades, but in 2017 they became much more popular as FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) gave permission to sell several drugs based on gene editing.
CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor) is a therapy with chimeric antigen receptors. It is based on the genetic modification of the patient’s T cells and can be used to treat a malignant tumor or autoimmune diseases.
CRISPR-Cas9 is a universal genome editing technology. It allows doctors to find certain areas of DNA, break a chain of nucleotides and make a point replacement. Now the process does not always happen as intended, but the technology has a great potential to treat HIV, cancer, hereditary diseases such as AGR. In 2016 in China CRISPR-Cas9 was first used in clinical practice.
