Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
year 2030, and the number of citizens in advanced senescence (>85 years old)
will be 2.5-fold higher.
14
Those over 85 require more medical assistance
resources and twice as many hospitalization days than the others.
15
In their turn, young people living in areas of high population density are more
exposed to traumatic lesions. Although less significant in numbers, these lesions
highly impact health costs, generating debilitated young people and/or indivi-
duals permanently incapacitated for normal, productive lives. There are an
estimated 10 000±12 000 spinal cord injuries every year in the United States; a
quarter of a million Americans are currently living with spinal cord injuries. The
cost of managing the care of spinal cord injury patients approaches $4 billion
each year. About 38.5% of all spinal cord injuries happen during car accidents.
Almost a quarter, 24.5%, are the result of injuries relating to violent encounters,
often involving guns and knives. The rest are due to sporting accidents, falls, and
work-related accidents. Some 55% of spinal cord injury victims are between 16
and 30 years old. More than 80% of spinal cord injury patients are men.
16
And
what is there, in terms of new drugs, surgical or clinical protocols, to this highly
impacting health issue? In Brazil, a developing country of more than 170 million
people, for example, traumatic lesions are the first cause of either hospitalization
or death in the second and third decades of life.
17
19.3.1 Cardiovascular disease (CVD)
The World Health Organization (WHO) calls it an epidemic of heart attack and
stroke. WHO numbers are that 17 million people die of CVD, particularly heart
attacks and strokes, every year (Fig. 19.2). A substantial number of these deaths
can be attributed to tobacco smoking, which increases the risk of dying from
coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular disease two or threefold. Physical
inactivity and unhealthy diet are other main risk factors that increase individual
risks to cardiovascular diseases.
18
One of the strategies to respond to the
challenges to population health and well-being due to the global epidemic of
heart attack and stroke is to provide actionable information for development and
implementation of appropriate policies. But still, as the overall population grows
older, coronary heart disease and stroke might be defeated by new drugs, as
already mentioned, and a suitable program of actions, but chagasic, hypertrophic
and dilated cardiovascular disease might represent the next area for action.
There, cell therapy, to a specific lesion area, or as a multipurpose, aimed at a
person's regenerative cell reservoir mobilizing strategy, might be the solution.
It is estimated that there are over 70 000 heart attacks in Canada, for example,
each year. In 2001 (the latest year for which statistics are available from
Statistics Canada) 19 000 Canadians died from heart attacks. Over 80% of heart
attack patients admitted to hospital survived.
19
The economic impact of heart failure in the United States is outstanding.
Nearly 5 million Americans are living with heart failure, and 550 000 new cases
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