Top 10 list of medical Advances in the Twenty First Century.( help to spreed please)

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We already have gone through the first decade of the 21st Century . This first decade brought several discoveries, medical advances and mistakes that have influenced medicine. These changes changed deep-seated beliefs in medicine; in others, they opened possibilities.


It's always fun  peruse the end of era  best list ,that's why my  good times pals   and I decided to come up with our own list of  top 10 medical advances in the first decade of the 21st century.in order to come up with this list our panel of four medical resident who are  very expert (at least they think so) ,who fraught  i mean debated in very understanding and professional session  for hours  to bring you this list. We used our knowledge and several medical journals.  But I have got to say it's a really great list.


 So Here are the top 10 list of medical advances in the first decade into this century,starting from number 10.


 10. HPV Vaccine:

This  vaccine  was made available in the United States in 2006. It was approved for women in 2006 and men in 2009. With this vaccine now it is possible to prevent an HPV infection, thereby cutting the risk of cervical cancer for women. It is for the first time in human history to prevent cancer with vaccination.

 9.Robots doing surgeries :
 Tiny metal hands carefully manipulating sutures deep inside the heart, no this not a seen pulled from "Star Trek," it's the reality is that robotic surgery is occurring daily in a growing number of centers across the modern world. Ten years ago a patient would typically be left with a big ugly surgical scar. The greatest advantages of small openings into the body rather than large incisions made by traditional surgery is shorter and less painful recovery time. Robotic surgery also increased the ability of cancer surgeons to get clean margins and good magnification of the structures. But critics, and there are many, say the cost of the robotic hardware may outweigh the benefit and it is racing ahead of the evidence.


 8.Face Transplant Surgery:
No it is not  like something of 50’s B-movie ,but successful Face left surgery wasn't until the 2000s.French surgeons performed a partial face transplant in 2005. In December 2008, doctors at the Cleveland Clinic successfully performed a face transplant on Connie Culp, victim of a gunshot wound to the face. Although the procedure is still in it’s early stages , but doctors’ ability to reconstruct a recognizable countenance is the hope for anyone who has suffered facial disfiguration.  

7.Mind-reading :

Mind-reading has moved from carnival to the halls of medicine .The medical mind-readers are not trying to identify a card randomly selected from a deck -- they are using sophisticated  techniques to map the way the mind works. There are  two kind of techniques used ; The functional MRI and the repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) .

• The fMRI traces the working of neurons (brain cells) by tracking changes in the oxygen levels and blood flow to the brain. The more brain activity in one area, the more oxygen will be used and the more blood will flow to that area .It's done while the patient lies awake inside an MRI scanner, He or she is asked to perform a simple task, like identifying a color or solving a math problem.  
•  The repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) works on a part of the brain thought to be involved in rational inference --the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex -- it's interfere temporarily with the activity in that part of the brain and test its effect on the ToM "Theory of Mind" abilities . This techneques doesnt affect the abilities to infer emotions (affective ToM). Now we know much more about cognition, social communication, reward systems, decision-making, and so on.

6. New Drugs for treating cancer:
cancer drugs that target specific molecules that control not only cell growth, but also the blood supply that feeds tumors. cancer drugs that target specific molecules that control only cell growth, but also the blood supply that feeds tumors. Cancer drugs that target specific molecules that control only cell growth, but also the blood supply that feeds tumors but the normal cells Two therapies burst on the cancer scene in late 1990s, which changed forever the concept of cancer treatment, making cancer a chronic illness instead of a fatal disease. 

•  The first, Herceptin, is a drug that targets a type of breast cancer that expresses a specific cancer gene (an oncogene) called HER-2. Women whose cancers express HER-2, which is estimated to be about 25 percent of women with breast cancer, will respond to Herceptin even when other powerful chemotherapy drugs have failed.
•  The other drug, a cancer pill called Gleevec, targets genetic mutation called bcr-abl (b.c.r. able) that causes cancer cells to grow and multiply in patients with a variety of cancers, including chronic myeloid leukemia or with a stomach cancer called GIST. 

 These two breakthrough agents opened the door to several cancer drugs that are highly effective and specific. 


4.Stem Cell Research:
 This area has generated more political action than reproducible clinical advances -- the much-publicized is funding of embryonic stem cell research But the clinical advances with embryonic or adult stem cells -- even when they have come from pilot studies -- have been exciting. For example, European researchers genetically manipulated bone marrow cells taken from two 7-year-old boys and then transplanted the altered cells back into the boys and apparently arrested the progress of a fatal brain disease called adrenoleukodystropy or ALD, which was the disease that affected the child in.  


Another great use is in organ transplants .Stem cells researches also seen now  as opportunity for 'replacement parts' . In 2009, Japanese scientists figured out how to use adult stem cells – rather than embryonic stem cells – to regenerate a fully functioning rodent’s tooth. So Doctors counting on stem cell research to give them , at least, new tissues hair bones ,cartilges ,skins for theire patients who need them ,opening the future to a new branch of medicine called regenerative medicine.


Stem cell  treatments will lead to cure of what known as disease like Diabetes or the end of debilitating diseases like Multiple Sclerosis. 
 3. Nanotechnology:
Nanotechnology is the accurate and controlled fabrication of atoms and molecules at nanometer dimensions, into novel materials and devices with unique properties. Nanomedicine the science that implements nanotechnology technology for diagnosing, treating and preventing disease and traumatic injury, of relieving pain and of preserving and improving human health, using molecular tools and molecular knowledge of the human body. This  technology still under study,and the results are promising.The Nanomedicine initiative launched in 2005  and it is expected to  yield its medical benefits as early as 10 years from its launching in 2005.

 2.Information Technology among doctors and patients: 
Internet and information technology has actually changed the way doctors practice medicine for the better. Even doctors need to look things up from time to time. Early in practice, if physicians     had a clinical question to research, they had to go to the library, pull out multiple years of the Index Medicus, look up the topic, write down the references, go to the stacks and pull the volumes of journals, find the article, read the article, go to the copy machine and make a copy; if he/she was lucky, They would have the answer in about four hours. But now whenever I had question I just look at my PDA device ,go online and search at the best up to date medical liberaries to find my answers from among thousands of papers in matter of seconds and all that without leaving my patient or my rounds. Also ,thanks to the state of the art medical apps and eBooks I can and less than five minutes have more information on the topic than I need. 


On my iPod Touch, I can look up a medication, check the formulary to see if it's covered, check for interactions with a patient's other meds and double-check details of the pharmacology of the med plus quickly review the problem I am treating, and I do not even have to go online. 


 Information technology has also, somewhat, made life safer for the patient. Once admitted to a hospital, they get a bar code which matches their blood samples and their IVs. With the Electronic medical records all what we have to do is to login the system to put the patient medical number and see all patient medical history and even write the new updates .


 In my country Saudi Arabia some health sectors like military and national guards hospitals have implement an unified electronic records technology where patients records can be found in any of those hospitals.


  1.The Bedside Human Genome Discoveries:


Mapping the human genome had accelerated since the 1990s, In 2000, scientists in with the International Human Genome Project released a rough draft of the human genome to the public. For the first time the world could read the complete set of human genetic information and begin to discover what our roughly 23,000 genes do. 
 Genes can be used now in screening for some diseases . Gene screens are fast becoming a powerful tool, not just for diagnosing cancer but for treating it as well

 With our knowledge of DNA and our ability to screen children before birth for several diseases and conditions. We may be looking at a new generation of extremely intelligent and healthy individuals. 


 Venter a scientist behind Celera Genomics said "doctors have developed a genetic test for a gene associated with prostate cancer, "and there's a drug available that greatly lowers the risk for prostate cancer in the future." "I think the biggest area of the future will be preventive medicine" said Venter. "By understanding the genetic causes and links to disease we can spend more and more attention on preventing disease."





That was my top 10 list of medical breakthrough ,what do you think of it? and do think think I SHOULD OR SHOULD NOT ADD ANYTHING?..


Finally this post was made as an entry for Top 10 Summer Contest. I HOPE you enjoyed it.