bmj.com -- Press Releases

Releases Saturday 13 November 1999
No 7220 Volume 319

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the source BMJ article (URL's are given under titles).

HOW NEW TECHNOLOGIES WILL TRANSFORM
MEDICINE OF THE FUTURE

This week's BMJ is devoted to the subject of "The Impact of
New Technologies in Medicine". The journal has been
designed to reflect how we think it might look in the future.
The paper version of the BMJ contains short 'trailers' for
longer electronic versions of articles, which are multimedia
and linked to other information sources (see www.bmj.com
from 0001 hours Friday 12 November). Highlights of the
technological developments and ethical issues raised in this
week's BMJ include:-

Technologies of the future?..

• Soon, diabetic patients will wear a monitoring device on
their wrist which checks glucose levels and raises an alarm
when levels are too high or low (1) &(5)

• Ultimately, diabetes sufferers will have a glucose monitoring
sensor implanted under the skin and an internal insulin
reservoir that automatically adjusts insulin doses (2)&(4)

• New forms of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) will
detect dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia and
manic depression (3)

• Toilets will analyse urine samples (and automatically send a
report to a user's doctor if necessary) (4)

• Radiosurgery, in the treatment of brain tumours, cerebral
vascular malformations, Parkinson's disease and epilepsy will
be developed (5)

• Minimally invasive hi-tech surgery will become the norm (5)

• Robots will be deployed in hospitals, running central supply
services, filling requests and orders in the hospital pharmacy
and carrying out a range of tasks (5)

• Xenotransplantation will be available on a large-scale by the
end of the coming decade (5)

• A biochip photosensor will be implanted in the eye as an
artificial retina for patients with macular degeneration (4)

• Electronic noses will detect and differentiate the odours of
growing bacteria and instantly identify the bacteria causing
ear, nose and throat infections(4)

• Auditory sensor implants that bypass non-functioning parts
of the hearing mechanism will help the deaf to hear (4)

• New wheelchairs will enable users to go up and down stairs;
reach for items on high shelves and talk to others who are
standing at eye level (6)

• In-patients will be implanted with sensors when they are
admitted, to do 40+ lab tests (5)

Hospitals of the future?..

• Separate hospital beds, operating tables and gurneys will be
replaced by one multi-purpose piece of equipment which will
be embedded with sensors to monitor vital signs and provide
mechanical ventilation, intravenous infusion and cardiac
defibrillation, such that central intensive care units may no
longer be needed4

• Ceiling vents in hospital lobbies will monitor visitors for any
infections they may be carrying into the premises4

The future of genetics?.

• Tensions between raw scientific optimism and a desire to
avoid potential adverse social and ethical consequences will
affect the pace of development in mapping the human genome
(7)

• Genetic testing and gene manipulation could transform
medicine - it will no longer be "diagnosis and treatment" but
"prediction and prevention" (7)

• Future generations will have the heavy responsibility of
knowing their genetic make-up( 7)

• Eugenics isn't all bad. So long as no force or coercion is
involved, why shouldn't parents choose the eye colour of
their child or create a fetus that will have the propensity for
mathematics?( 8)

The impact of informatics?.

• Making medical decisions has become too complex and
time consuming for the unaided human mind to accomplish
reliably. Software tools are needed to help doctors negotiate
their way through the enormous body of medical knowledge
(9)

• Consultations with clinicians based overseas will become the
norm, either by video-conferencing or via email (10)

• Patients who have an ongoing illness and have a routine
query about their condition or treatment will be able to email
their doctor instead of going to see him/her (10)

Bringing new technologies into practice?.

• New healthcare technologies are becoming more numerous
- but how do we ascertain how effective they are, which
patients will benefit the most and how healthcare systems will
pay for them? (11)

• Before we expend yet more resources in the pursuit of new
technologies, medicine should adopt new methods to make
better use of the resources that we already have...(9)

References and contacts:

All citations are from BMJ Volume 319 13 November 1999.
The title of the short version of the paper is quoted
first/followed by the title of full electronic version.

(1.) (Solving the diabetic's dilemma / In vivo glucose sensing
for diabetes management: progress towards non-invasive
monitoring?)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1289

Contact:

Dr John Pickup, Department of Chemical Pathology, Guy's,
King's College and St Thomas's School of Medicine,
London
Email: j.pickup{at}umds.ac.uk

(2.) (New technologies in medicine and medical journals?)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/0

Contact:

Jill Shepherd, BMJ Press Office
Email: jshepherd{at}bmj.com

(3.) (Brain imaging / The NMR revolution in brain imaging?)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1302

Contact:

Prof James Prichard, Department of Neurology, Yale
Medical School USA

Email: james.prichard{at}yale.edu (4.)
(Sensors 2010 / Sensors in medicine?)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1288

Contact:

Dr Charles B Wilson, Institute for the Future, Menlo Park,
CA and Department of Neurosurgery, University of California
at San Francisco, USA
Email: WilsonC{at}neurosurg.ucsf.edu

(5.) (The future of hospitals / The impact of medical
technologies on the future of hospitals?)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1287

Contact:

As above

(6.) (Technology for disabilities?)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1290

Contact:

Dr Ron Davis, North American Editor, BMJ, Center for
Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Henry Ford
Health System, Detroit, USA

Prof Rory Cooper, Department of Rehabilitation Science &
Technology, School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences,
University of Pittsburgh, USA
Email: rcooper{at}pitt.edu

(7.) (Mapping the human genome / The human genome
project: a false dawn?)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1282

Contact:

Dr Ron Zimmern, Director, Public Health Genetics Unit,
Strangeways Research Laboratory, Cambridge
Email: ron.zimmern{at}srl.cam.ac.uk

(8.) (What is immoral about eugenics?)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1284

Contact:

Dr Arthur Caplan, Director, Center for Bioethics, University
of Pennsylvania Health System, Philadelphia USA
Email: Caplan{at}fast.net

(9.) (Opening the black box of clinical judgement?)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1279

Contact:

Lawrence L Weed, President, PKC Corporation (software),
Vermont USA
Email: llw{at}pkc.com

(10.) (Cybermedicine / Shopping around the internet today
and tomorrow: towards the millennium of cybermedicine?)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1294

Contact:

Dr Gunther Eysenbach, Unit for Cybermedicine, Department
of Clinical Social Medicine, University of Heidelberg,
Germany
Email: ey{at}yi.com

(11.) (Keeping pace with new technologies / Keeping pace
with new technologies: systems needed to identify and
evaluate them)
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1291

Contact:

Prof Andrew Stevens, Department of Public Health and
Epidemiology, University of Birmingham
Email: A.J.Stevens{at}bham.ac.uk

FOR ACCREDITED JOURNALISTS

Embargoed press releases and articles are available from:

Public Affairs Division
BMA House
Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9JR
(contact Jill Shepherd;pressoffice{at}bma.org.uk)

and from:

the EurekAlert website, run by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science
(http://www.eurekalert.org)