by Marc Lichtenfeld, Advisory Panelist, Health Care Expert
Wednesday, October 7, 2009: Issue #1110
The procedure has been called "one of the most barbaric mistakes ever perpetrated by mainstream medicine." Back when medicine was highly primitive, the process involved shoving an ice pick-like instrument between the upper eyelid and the eye in hopes of severing certain nerves of the frontal lobe.
This was the early method of performing a lobotomy. And just 50 years ago, they were carried out not only on severely mentally ill people, but also on moody teenagers, or housewives who'd lost their enthusiasm for domestic work. Seriously. Over 40,000 Americans were lobotomized, often with catastrophic results.
Thankfully, they're a thing of the past. But it made me think about how medicine has changed over the years and what practices were once acceptable. Just a few hundred years ago, for example, you wouldn't have questioned the "doctor" for putting leeches on you any more than you do today for prescribing an antibiotic.
What other common medical practices will be outdated in the years to come – and more importantly what will replace them? As someone who follows the health care sector, I believe I have the answer to the next big thing in health care: Immunotherapy and regenerative medicine…
How Immunotherapy is Changing the Playing Field
Immunotherapy has been around for decades in the forms of vaccines, allergy shots, etc. It involves introducing something into the body to create an immune response. For example, when you receive a flu shot, you're essentially training your body's immune system to respond to specific infectious agents.
And then there are more serious diseases – like cancer.
Over the past few years, we've seen new cancer medicines receive approval, with even more in development.
With greater technology and intensive ongoing research, we may one day look back at chemotherapy (the equivalent of carpet-bombing your body in order to kill cancer) as barbaric as we do lobotomies.
And with regard to immunotherapy drugs, the body's immune system specifically targets the cancer, typically resulting in fewer side effects than chemotherapy.
Several well-known cancer drugs already employ this technique – for example, Genentech's Avastin and Herceptin and Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) and ImClone's joint-partnership with Erbitux.
