As we plan for 2021, we al­so rec­ol­lect on the tu­mul­tuous year of 2020. From a health per­spec­tive, it has been one turned up­side down with a dead­ly glob­al pan­dem­ic re­ori­ent­ing how we live our lives and re­late to oth­ers. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has jus­ti­fi­ably dom­i­nat­ed head­lines and at­ten­tion from me­dia, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and health of­fi­cials alike.

While it is clear­ly the defin­ing pub­lic health, cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, even po­lit­i­cal event of the year, the pan­dem­ic shouldn’t ob­scure the fact that 2020 was al­so a time of great med­ical in­no­va­tion. The med­ical com­mu­ni­ty made note­wor­thy ad­vances through­out 2020 even amid the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

From break­throughs in on­col­o­gy, gene ther­a­pies, and heart health, to the de­vel­op­ment of COVID-19 vac­cines that are now be­ing ad­min­is­tered around the world, there is a lot that the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty can be proud of in 2020.

1. On­col­o­gy ad­vance­ments: Pre­ven­tive tech­niques to tar­get­ed ther­a­pies

“2020 has been a year that’s seen can­cer re­search push for­ward on mul­ti­ple fronts” shares Dr Ben­jamin Neel, PhD, di­rec­tor of the Can­cer Cen­ter at NY Uni­ver­si­ty.

He shared tech­nolo­gies are in de­vel­op­ment for ear­ly de­tec­tion of can­cer by way of blood tests. “It’s been known for quite some time that tu­mors re­lease DNA in­to the blood­stream, we have tech­nol­o­gy de­vel­op­ing from the stand­point of mon­i­tor­ing tu­mors, con­duct­ing sen­si­tive tests for tu­mors, for tests for re­cur­rence of can­cers and pro­tein-based tests” Dr Neel shared.

He al­so cit­ed tech­nol­o­gy that mod­u­lates the reg­u­la­to­ry DNA se­quence pat­terns, which refers to the part of the DNA mol­e­cule that can change the way a gene ex­press­es it­self in a liv­ing thing, to pin­point when methy­la­tion pat­terns might point to the de­vel­op­ment of can­cer.

2. Break­throughs in heart dis­ease

Re­cent­ly, the Amer­i­can Heart As­so­ci­a­tion re­leased its own list of in­no­va­tions in med­ical treat­ments. Amer­i­can Heart As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Dr Mitchell S V Elkind, MS, FAAN, FA­HA, shared, “All of these ad­vances over the past year re­flect con­nec­tions be­tween seem­ing­ly dis­parate ar­eas of med­i­cine and the fact that we are most suc­cess­ful when we break down the bar­ri­ers be­tween fields.”

When asked if there was one par­tic­u­lar heart health in­no­va­tion that stood out the most to him, Elkind said that what res­onat­ed with him was some­thing not tied to “fan­cy med­ica­tions or ground­break­ing re­search.” He em­pha­sised, “In or­der to tack­le an is­sue as wide rang­ing as heart dis­ease, for in­stance, it takes an in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary, com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach.”

“We al­so learned more this year about the un­ex­pect­ed ways in which med­i­cines de­signed to treat di­a­betes, the sodi­um glu­cose trans­porter 2 in­hibitors, help pa­tients with heart fail­ure, even those with­out di­a­betes,” he added.

“An analy­sis of peo­ple from across the US showed that rates of blood pres­sure spikes have been in­creas­ing in the US, af­ter al­most two decades of bet­ter con­trol. High blood pres­sure is one of the most im­por­tant and eas­i­ly treat­ed risk fac­tors for stroke and heart dis­ease, and so this back­slid­ing is es­pe­cial­ly alarm­ing,” he added.

“Im­prov­ing ac­cess to qual­i­ty care is one of the best ways we have to im­prove health, and that is where we at the Amer­i­can Heart As­so­ci­a­tion will be plac­ing our ef­forts in the com­ing years,” he said, em­pha­sis­ing the need for more pri­ma­ry care health physi­cians with a fo­cus on pre­ven­ta­tive health.

Smart­phone con­nect­ed Pace­mak­er De­vices

Im­plantable de­vices like pace­mak­ers and de­fib­ril­la­tors de­liv­er elec­tri­cal im­puls­es to the heart mus­cle cham­bers to con­tract and pump blood to the body. They are used to pre­vent or cor­rect ar­rhyth­mias, heart­beats that are un­even, too slow or too fast. Re­mote mon­i­tor­ing of these de­vices is an es­sen­tial part of care.

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, re­mote mon­i­tor­ing of this de­vice takes place through a bed-side con­sole that trans­mits the pace­mak­er or de­fib­ril­la­tor da­ta to the physi­cian. Though mil­lions of pa­tients have pace­mak­ers and de­fib­ril­la­tors, many lack a ba­sic un­der­stand­ing of the de­vice or how it func­tions and ad­her­ence to re­mote mon­i­tor­ing has been sub­op­ti­mal.

Blue­tooth-en­abled pace­mak­er de­vices can rem­e­dy these is­sues of dis­con­nec­tion be­tween pa­tients and their car­diac treat­ment. Used in con­junc­tion with a mo­bile app, these con­nect­ed de­vices al­low pa­tients greater in­sight in­to the health da­ta from the pace­mak­ers and trans­mit the health in­for­ma­tion to their physi­cians.

3. A blood test for Alzheimer’s dis­ease

This year, a pos­si­ble break­through in Alzheimer’s dis­ease re­search and treat­ment came in the form of a blood test that can di­ag­nose this pro­gres­sive form of de­men­tia.

There are as many as five mil­lion per­sons liv­ing with Alzheimer’s dis­ease in the US, far­less for the to­tal glob­al­ly, a num­ber that will like­ly triple by 2060, ac­cord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC).

While the news is huge, the test is still in the tri­al phase. If ul­ti­mate­ly ap­proved, a sim­ple test for the con­di­tion would be a game chang­er.

A look to the fu­ture: Telemed­i­cine

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic saw an in­creased adop­tion of telemed­ical prac­tices as clin­i­cians need­ed to con­duct pa­tient vis­its on­line. An in­creas­ing­ly vir­tu­al care mod­el and in­creased con­sumer adop­tion came by way of fun­da­men­tal shifts in pol­i­cy at both the gov­ern­ment and provider lev­el.

Since March 2020, the US state and fed­er­al reg­u­la­tors have moved quick­ly to re­duce bar­ri­ers to tele­health, un­der­stand­ing that these new tools can speed ac­cess to care while pro­tect­ing health­care work­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. These mea­sures opened the flood­gates for tele­health, al­low­ing for new pro­grammes and the ex­pan­sion of ex­ist­ing net­works.

As 2020 dropped its cur­tain, and we wel­come 2021, ex­perts are look­ing to a more hope­ful year, es­pe­cial­ly with a greater util­i­sa­tion of Telemed­i­cine.