Fundmastery Blog

Kurt Brouwer November 30th, 2007

This article addresses a new diagnostic tool that promises to make early detection of health problems vastly simpler, less intrusive and more reliable. I am discussing it because it is an example of the almost daily improvements we see in healthcare. Take this advance along with dozens and hundreds of others and we begin to see glimmerings of a far different health landscape [emphasis added below]:

A new blood test promises to spot cancer and Alzheimer’s long before you get sick (Popular Science Magazine, November 2007, Kalee Thompson)

‘By the time a doctor diagnoses you with cancer or a neurodegenerative disease, you may have been living with it for years-a troubling fact, given that early detection is the most important factor in successful treatment. Now, Power3 Medical Products, a biotech firm in Houston, Texas, has developed simple, low-cost blood tests for breast cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s that will allow physicians to spot disease the moment it shows up in a patient’s body-years earlier than today’s most advanced technologies can catch it. “With our tests, you don’t have to wait around for 6 or 10 years [to spot the problem],” says CEO Steven Rash…

…The new breast-cancer test is much less invasive than a mammogram or biopsy. A doctor samples a patient’s blood and sends it to Power3’s lab, where scientists search for 22 irregular proteins that Power3 has identified as early signs of breast cancer. Initially the test will debut in 40 clinics that treat women at high risk for breast cancer, Rash says. Women under 40 years of age with high-risk genetic or family factors should benefit the most, he adds, because their denser breast tissue makes mammography significantly less effective. Scientists have been working to develop proteomic tests for the past three years, but they were derailed by inconsistent test results. Early data indicate that Power3 has overcome this challenge. In a blind trial of 60 blood samples provided by Mercy Women’s Center in Oklahoma City, the test scored a 97 percent rate of identifying cancer in samples from diagnosed patients and a 93 percent rate of correctly identifying healthy women as cancer-free. A second 100-patient trial will be completed by the end of the year. In comparison, mammograms miss up to 30 percent of breast cancers, and 75 percent of the biopsies performed after an irregular mammogram prove benign…

“There’s tremendous promise in proteomics,” says Lance Liotta, a proteomic scientist at George Mason University. “The early diagnosis and individualized therapy coming out of the science is going to change medicine.” But Power3’s results are not conclusive, so until further testing confirms the test’s reliability, it will just supplement existing tests.

The company is also validating protein-based tests for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, the latter an affliction for which the only conclusive test is currently an autopsy. Among the possible benefits of a proteomic Alzheimer’s test, due out late next year, would be the ability to definitively separate sufferers from those with other neurodegenerative problems, now a major obstacle to running effective clinical trials of drugs for Alzheimer’s…’

This type of testing is significant because it is cheaper, less intrusive and more reliable. As a result, people will know much earlier if they have a problem and, therefore, will be able to treat a disease far earlier. It is a truism that an accurate early diagnosis is critical to an improved outcome. And, not only will this type of advance promote healthier outcomes, it will also result in less expensive treatment because diseases are much easier to treat if you catch them early. And, this type of testing completely redefines the term early, by a matter of years.

The broader implication of this is that prevention is cheaper than treatment and that has huge implications for our healthcare cost structure, which is one of the most troubling fiscal issues we face.

Recently, I have seen several articles that predict fiscal doom and gloom by taking the current cost of Medicare, applying an inflation rate to those costs and then assuming the system just continues unchanged for 75 years. This type of linear analysis is absurd in my opinion. Think of the changes in our lives that have occurred over the past 20 years, many of which were not even imaginable at the time. If imagining the future 20 years from now is difficult, just extrapolate that further by going out 75 years.

In short, I doubt if human nature will change, but I suspect most other aspects of health and daily living will have changed dramatically — for the better — in 75 years.

Hat Tip: Instapundit.com

• Economy , Money , Personal Finance , Retirement
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