TOP 10 MEDICAL INNOVATIONS NAMED
Leading U.S. medical center lists technologies expected to shape healthcare in 2007.
November 7, 2006

With terms like "neurostimulation" and "endografting" it’s a far cry from comedian David Letterman’s top 10 lists. But what a top 10 list of medical breakthroughs impacting healthcare in 2007 published Tuesday lacks in yucks it makes up for in other ways.

The Cleveland Clinic, famed for its work in cardiology and ranked as the third-best hospital in America by U.S. News & World Report put the list together. It includes therapies for cancer, asthma, heart failure, age-related macular degeneration, and vascular disease.

The companies behind the breakthroughs include Merck & Co., which in June set the path for a major healthcare win for women when it garnered the first vaccine to prevent cervical cancer (see Merck’s Cervical Vaccine OK’d).

Other companies pushing the technology that made it on the list include Cyberonics and Medtronic, which both have been developing implantable devices to treat drug-resistant depression. Although it’s been a rocky road for Cyberonics, the company has already managed to get the first device approved for the indication (see Implants to Fix Mood Swings and Cyberonics Board Fight Continues).

The list’s up-and-coming devices and therapies were selected by a panel of Cleveland Clinic physicians and scientists.

The qualifying criteria for selecting the top innovations included significant potential for short-term clinical impact, and a high success probability. As well, treatments must be on the market, or close to introduction.

And without further delay . . .

The Cleveland Clinic's List of Top 10 Medical Innovations for 2007
10. Convection-enhanced delivery of drugs: An emerging drug delivery method used to administer medication directly to the site where it is needed, without exposing the rest of the body to a drug’s effects.

9. Left Ventricular Assist System (LVAS): An implantable device that helps the left side of the heart push blood to the aorta, the body’s main blood vessel. The breakthrough is that the device also senses when to increase or decrease the rate of blood flow.

8. Targeted cancer therapies: Using cell growth inhibitors to treat cancers, such as renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer.

7. Endografting: A minimally invasive repair technique traditionally used in cardiology. It is now being used to treat vascular disease.

6. Ranibizumab: A drug therapy that inhibits uncontrolled blood vessel formation in the eye, which is the primary cause of age-related macular degeneration.

5. Bronchial Thermoplasty (BT): A therapy involving the controlled application of heat in the lungs to improve pulmonary function and curb asthma symptoms.

4. Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT): A noninvasive imaging technology used in the treatment and diagnosis of eye diseases.

3. Neurostimulation for Psychiatric Disorders: Implantable devices that apply electronics and engineering to the human nervous system to treat those with treatment resistant depression and obsessive compulsive disorder.

2. Designer Therapeutics Using Selective Receptor Antagonists: Designing therapeutics to block the peripheral side effects of opioids that are used for treating such health issues as pain.

1. Cancer Vaccines: Targeted therapies used to prevent cancer and treat patients according to the type of cancer they have.

Contact the writer: RBarron@RedHerring.com