2020 medical innovations include genetic editing, at-home hospital care

Patients can expect to see a boom in technology to support at-home acute care, novel diagnostic technology and genetic editing in 2020, according to Boston doctors who said new hope is on the horizon for patients everywhere.

The days of long and uncomfortable hospital stays could transition over to home care thanks to wearable devices such as a patch that takes vital signs and contactless sensors, according to Dr. David Levine, a general internist and research fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

“Medicine in the home is going to explode, we’re seeing that in so many places,” said Levine, who leads Brigham’s Home Hospital program which brings acute care to a patient’s home instead of admitting them to the hospital.

Levine said these programs will boom in 2020 as doctors can monitor vital signs 24/7 using patches that measure vitals, sensors that detect falls and respiration rates and at-home diagnostic tests.

“We can have patients wear a device to monitor all sorts of different things to either prevent you from having an exacerbation of a known chronic illness or to diagnose something in your own environment,” said Levine.

Dr. Errol Norwitz, chief scientific officer at Tufts Medical Center said in 2020, genetic engineering will make significant advancements.

“It’s going to cure diseases in the very near future, I truly believe that,” Norwitz said.

Personalized genetic editing through CRISPR technology could soon spell the end of blood diseases, neurological diseases and neuromuscular disorders, said Norwitz.

“We are going to be able to edit the genome very very soon,” said Norwitz.

A new field called cardio-oncology will become a “hot area” in medicine in the new year, according to Norwitz.

The field will focus on protecting the heart health of current or prior cancer patients, as treatments like chemotherapy can negatively impact cardiovascular health.

“If we are getting better at surviving cancer, we need to think ahead of what chronic diseases these patients are at risk of and one of those is cardiac disease,” said Norwitz.

Diagnostic tests using saliva instead of blood or urine will also surface in the new year and will greatly impact the patient experience, said Norwitz.

Getting a saliva sample is far easier than getting a blood or urine sample. Researchers are finding that saliva tests can reveal fetal brain health in pregnant women, newborn health and gender, for example.

“It could develop as the new generation of test instead of using a blood test,” said Norwitz, adding that many people in the medical community have not picked up on the diagnostic tool yet, but most likely will in 2020.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2Qh1gjT