Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
current policy, beta-blocker therapy ± a very simple and well-known medicine ±
resulted in increased survival of 0.3 years per patient, reduced societal costs by
$3959 per patient over 5 years and medicare costs declined by $6064 due
primarily to lower hospitalization rates.
11
Using this perspective, medicare
would gain the most if more heart failure patients were treated with beta-
blockers. Effective and economically feasible methods of improving prescribing
patterns in the community have not been established and have proved dependent
upon educational interventions, monitoring and feedback activities. Last but not
least, the limiting factor seems to be the increase in complexity of outpatient
management. There is the question of what to do as to the clinical and economic
consequences of chronic heart failure when 50% of the patients die within 5
years
12
and that more and more patients survive a myocardial infarction due to
better pharmacologic treatments. But some studies suggest that treatments may
be cost-effective once adopted, but less economically attractive when costs of
achieving higher rates of adoption and adherence are considered. Cardiac
diseases correspond to more than 30% of death rates all over the world.
13
Given
these insights on the challenges of utilizing a very well-known and safe drug
such as beta-blockers, one can imagine the hurdles faced when launching an
absolutely new concept.
Pharmaceutical science and technology have evolved tremendously in the
past 50 years. That, added to better education and sanitary and nutritional
conditions, have resulted in an increase in those individuals of over 85 years of
age. Neurological disorders, an example of a health issue that might be of even
harder impact in social costs as the population gets older, already affect about
1.5 billion people worldwide and result in outstanding health expenses. Brain-
related illness generates more healthcare-related costs and lost income than any
other therapeutic area: an estimated $1.0 trillion worldwide and $350 billion
annually only in the United States. Twenty per cent of Americans over 65 have
Alzheimer's disease as well as 50% of those above 85 years of age. Alzheimer's
alone accounts for a health cost in the United States of over $100 billion
(Harvard Medical School data).
As of the year 2005 biopharmaceutical companies were developing about 146
medicines for heart disease and stroke. Of those, about 17 are meant for stroke, a
health issue that affect about 700 000 Americans each year; 16 for congestive
heart failure, which kills more than 50 000 Americans a year; 10 for high
pressure, a leading risk factor for both heart disease and stroke; 8 for heart
attacks; and 13 for arrhythmias.
Cutting-edge technologies might lead to new scientific approaches to dealing
with the heart's metabolism to require less oxygen (reducing episodes of pain
and allowing angina patients to be more active); the promotion of vessel growth
(angiogenesis showed to be absolutely necessary in cell therapy approaches); or
a vaccine that may be able to promote good cholesterol (2005 Survey, Medicines
in Development for Heart Disease and Stroke, PhRMA). All the above will lead
Search WWH ::
Custom Search