7 days in healthcare (September 2nd-8th, 2024)

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Summary

Biomedicine

  • Prostate cancer incidence in Europe: beware of overdiagnosis. The conclusion of an article published in the BMJ is that the incidence of prostate cancer varies very significantly in the different countries of Europe (rates of 46 in Ukraine to 336 in France, per 100,000 inhabitants). The incidence began to decline in some countries. The interpretation of screening must be very cautious, to avoid damage due to overdiagnosis.
  • The Lancet review on obesity in adults. It has increased in incidence worldwide and the WHO has declared it a global epidemic. Complex disease. Lifestyle changes only produce lasting improvement in a minority of patients. Bariatric surgery remains the most effective and long-lasting treatment. Very notable progress has been made in the field of pharmacology.
  • AI raises hopes for a better diagnosis of cancer, based on pathological anatomy. The model is called the Clinical Histopathology Imaging Evaluation Foundation (CHIEF) and was developed by Harvard Medical School. This tool, published in Nature, is trained to analyze tumor images, covering 19 cancers.

Global Health

  • Temperature-related mortality analyzed in Europe. The Lancet Public Health publishes a review led by David García-León on the consequences of heat and cold in 854 European cities.
  • Avian influenza in humans, without previous exposure. The CDC confirms the first avian influenza patient without known exposure.

International health policy

  • The failed experiment of primary care as a for-profit enterprise in the USA. Although for some time it was thought that primary care could be a lucrative business for investors, including private equity firms, the latest evidence does not support this hope in the USA, possibly because current payment systems do not adequately value primary care. This is also causing basic primary care centers in shopping centers, which Walmart was a pioneer of, to close.
  • The new British Health Minister’s best wishes. The British Health Minister says that the NHS is not broken, but it needs three major changes: “from hospital to community”, “from analogue to digital” and from “disease to prevention”. As a desideratum it is perfect, now we have to see how it is implemented. These are not exactly plans that the NHS lacks.
  • King’s Fund explains GP contracts for 2024-25. Apart from salary increases for different concepts, an incentive scheme is maintained (for quality, The Quality and Outcomes Framework; for investments and for experience in access).
  • Uruguay introduces a controversial hospital law. Law 20,279 reinforces forced admission to hospitals without the patient’s consent, in cases of homeless people, mental health problems or addictions. Humanitarian and professional organisations, against it.
  • The European Union is not fully prepared for the next health crisis, warns the auditing body. A report by the European Court of Audit shows that a lack of coordination between Member States in terms of information and testing slowed down the US response to the Covid-19 outbreak and warns that greater cooperation is needed to address future crises.

National Health Policy (Spain)

  • The Ministry is already looking for a date to publish the Strategic Plan for the Pharmaceutical Industry, with the idea of ​​establishing a framework for collaboration between the different agents.
  • State Agency for Public Health, likely to be delayed indefinitely. The government has 44 key laws in limbo, including that of the State Agency for Public Health, due to the lack of support in Congress.
  • Metges is opposed to the creation of new Faculties of Medicine in Catalonia, because it thinks that adding more university centres “would increase saturation and decrease teaching quality”. It is considered that there is a risk of having a surplus of doctors again, as in the 1980s. The challenge, according to this organisation, is that the 1,000 doctors who graduate in Catalonia decide to stay here to practice their profession. The number of Faculties of Medicine in Spain per 100,000 inhabitants is only surpassed by South Korea. Are many of them Faculties of Medicine or academies specialising in the MIR exam?
  • Galicia launches the Xenoma project to detect diseases with AI, an initiative that will collect the DNA of 400,000 Galicians to identify high-risk genetic variants and be able to offer personalized pharmacological treatments.
  • The autonomous communities compete to retain MIRs. In La Rioja, Castilla y León, Aragón or the Valencian Community, there are plans to offer advantageous conditions to residents so that they stay.
  • Are there too many dentists in Spain? Job insecurity among dentists. In 2023, the number of registered professionals reached 42,075 professionals; that is 9,630 more than ten years ago (2013), an increase of 29.7%.
  • It seems that there will be no Profarma plan in 2024. The new Profarma will arrive in 2025 and will assess the aspects of strategic autonomy. This program is more than 30 years old and provides tax exemptions for pharmaceutical companies that contribute the most to GDP through their activity. This plan, which was in effect for more than three decades, will surely not be in force in 2024.
  • Catalonia promotes the PRECISEU project led by Biocat. PRECISEU, a giant step towards personalized medicine in Europe. Endowed with 23 million euros, the project wants to promote personalized medicine and advanced therapies in Europe. The project has 25 partners and will last until 2029.

Companies

  • International
    • Investment in cancer does not cover all types. Large disparities in pharmaceutical investments in relation to the types of cancer. While new treatments for breast, lung and prostate cancer have appeared in recent years, other tumours, also with a high mortality rate, are less well-neglected, such as pancreatic tumours, colon tumours or brain tumours.
  • National
    • Farmaindustria attacks the European pharmaceutical reform for hindering innovation, because it is thought to be a threat to the competitiveness of European companies, compared to American or Chinese ones, according to Jesús Ponce.

Biomedicine

Global Health

International health policy

  • European Union
    • The European Union is not fully prepared for the next health crisis, warns the audit body. A report by the European Court of Audit shows that a lack of coordination between member states on information and testing slowed down the US response to the Covid-19 outbreak and warns that greater cooperation is needed to tackle future crises (https://www.ft.com/content/ca61f33c-8bf8-40d3-90e4-d417b04e224d)

National health policy

Companies