Oncology Advances Included in Cleveland Clinic's Top 10 Medical Innovations List for 2015
Antibody-drug conjugates, checkpoint inhibitors, and single-dose intraoperative radiation therapy for breast cancer were included in the Cleveland Clinic's Ninth Annual Top 10 Medical Innovations List released earlier today. The list identifies those advances likely to have a major impact on improving patient care in 2015. Also included on the list were a mobile stroke ambulance, fast, painless blood-testing, and a leadless cardiac pacemaker.
The list of up-and-coming technologies and drug therapies was selected by a panel of 110 Cleveland Clinic physicians and scientists and announced during the 2014 Medical Innovation Summit held this week at the Cleveland Clinic.
The Cleveland Clinic's Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2015 are:
1. Mobile Stroke Unit: Time lost is brain lost. High-tech ambulances bring the emergency department straight to the patient with stroke symptoms. Using telemedicine, in-hospital stroke neurologists interpret symptoms via broadband video link, while an onboard paramedic, critical care nurse, and CT technologist perform neurologic evaluation and administer t-PA after stroke detection, providing faster, effective treatment for the affected patient.
2. Dengue Fever Vaccine: More than 50 to 100 million people in more than 100 countries contract the dengue virus each year. The world’s first vaccine has been developed and tested, and is expected to be submitted to regulatory groups in 2015, with commercialization expected later that year.
3. Cost-Effective, Fast, Painless Blood-Testing: The new art of blood collection uses a drop of blood drawn from the fingertip in a virtually painless procedure. Test results are available within hours of the original draw and are estimated to cost as little as 10% of the traditional Medicare reimbursement.
4. PCSK9 Inhibitors for Cholesterol Reduction: Several PCSK9 inhibitors, or injectable cholesterol lowering drugs, are in development for those who don’t benefit from statins. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to approve the first PCSK9 in 2015 for its ability to significantly lower LDL cholesterol to levels never seen before.
5. Antibody-Drug Conjugates: A new approach for advanced cancer selectively delivers cytotoxic agents to tumor cells while avoiding normal, healthy tissue.
6. Checkpoint Inhibitors: Immune checkpoint inhibitors have allowed physicians to make significantly more progress against advanced cancer than has been achieved in decades. Combined with traditional chemotherapy and radiation treatment, the novel drugs boost the immune system and offer significant, long-term cancer remissions for patients with metastatic melanoma, and there is increasing evidence that they can work on other types of malignancies.
7. Leadless Cardiac Pacemaker: Since 1958, the technology involved in cardiac pacemakers hasn’t changed much. A silver dollar–sized pulse generator and a thin wire, or lead, inserted through the vein kept the heart beating at a steady pace. Leads, though, can break and crack, and become infection sites in 2% of cases. Vitamin-sized wireless cardiac pacemakers can be implanted directly in the heart without surgery and eliminate malfunction complications and restriction on daily physical activities.
8. New Drugs for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis: Nearly 80,000 American adults with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis may breathe easier in 2015 with the recent approval by the FDA of two new experimental drugs. Pirfenidone (Esbriet) and nintedanib (Ofev) slow the disease progress of the lethal lung disease, which causes scarring of the air sacs. Prior to these developments, there was no known treatment for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, in which life expectancy after diagnosis is just 3 to 5 years.
9. Single-Dose Intraoperative Radiation Therapy for Breast Cancer: Finding and treating breast cancer in its earliest stages can oftentimes lead to a cure. For most women with early-stage breast cancer, a lumpectomy is performed, followed by weeks of radiation therapy to reduce the likelihood of recurrence. Intraoperative radiation therapy focuses the radiation on the tumor during surgery as a single-dose and has proven effective as whole-breast radiation.
10. New Drug for Heart Failure: Angiotensin-receptor neprilysin inhibitor, or ARNI, has been granted Fast Track status by the FDA because of its survival advantage over the ACE inhibitor enalapril, the current gold standard for treating patients with heart failure. The unique drug compound represents a paradigm shift in heart failure therapy.
For more information on the annual Top 10 Medical Innovations list, visit the Medical Innovation Summit page at Cleveland Clinic.
The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. (ASCO®) and does not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of ASCO®.
