Three advances in non-invasive (or less-invasive) medical procedures that should be showing up at your doctor’s office RSN:
Medical guidelines now recommend that everybody have a colonoscopy at age 50 as preliminary screening for colorectal cancer; huge decreases in the occurrence of colorectal cancer have been attributed to this screening protocol. Nevertheless, as my blog-buddy Linknmeister can attest to from recent personal experience, it’s an uncomfortable and unpleasant event. This Singularity Hub post reports that scientists have found a way to detect cancerous cells sloughed from the intestine into the feces, making it possible to screen with 85% accuracy through a fecal sample. It may not replace the colonoscopy completely as a screening tool, but it might be adequate for the early baseline screening, meaning many people could skip the 50th Birthday Surprise. It’s expected to hit clinical trials in 2012, one year before I turn 50, so maybe it’ll go mainstream just in time for me. Sorry, Linkmeister.
Another indignity of regular medical assessment is the blood draw. Definitely not as involved or as degrading as having a camera inserted up your ass, but it involves its own irksome elements, not the least of which is when the phlebotomist can’t find your veins and ruts around with her needle in your arm looking for blood like a robotic killer mosquito (trust me, I speak from abundant experience). Plus, the blood draw is a far more common occurrence for anyone who needs regular medical followups. This MIT Technology Review post says that improvements in chromatographic mass spectometry may make the need to take blood samples unnecessary, since a new scanner could simply read the elements in your blood right through your skin. The technology is likely to emerge first in home blood glucose monitoring, since the market for that gets bigger and bigger every day, but may well find its way into physicians’ offices as it develops.
Somewhat relatedly, it has been recently found that pregnant women carry a complete genome of their baby’s DNA in their own blood, which may make it possible to conduct genetic screenings that currently rely on the somewhat-invasive fluid draw for amniocentesis through a less-invasive blood sample. Amniocentesis carries a small risk of miscarriage, so anything less invasive would be preferrable, but there’s a lot of work to be done to refine the methods of analysis and to reduce the cost of the testing to a point where it would be a feasible alternative.
