Ovarian Cyst Daily

From vaccines and stem cells to growing organs, a lot happened health-wise in the last decade. We look at 10 of the most significant medical breakthroughs.

A vaccine for cervical cancer hit the market: It was pioneered by Queensland-based immunologist Professor Ian Frazer.

Called Gardasil, it vaccinates young women against four types of human papillomavirus (HPV), two of which cause 70 per cent of cervical cancers, a disease that kills 270,000 women worldwide each year.

The vaccine is only the second preventive cancer vaccine ever to be released (the first was the hepatitis B vaccine, which helps protect against liver cancer). So impressive was the breakthrough that in 2006, when the vaccine was launched, Professor Frazer was named Australian of the Year.

Two years later Gardasil took out the pharmaceutical industry’s top gong by winning the International Prix Galien.

Herceptin was put on the PBS: A drug that was hailed as the first molecular-targeted breast cancer therapy in 1998, Herceptin was quickly recognised as a vital part of treatment for women with a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer called HER2 positive breast cancer.

It’s believed that about 20 per cent of women with breast cancer are HER2 positive. In Australia, the real breakthrough came in 2001 and again in 2006, when Breast Cancer Network Australia successfully lobbied the government to list Herceptin – an expensive treatment option – on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

It was a move that not only made the drug readily available to eligible women, but also created a landmark moment for patient advocacy groups.

The “fat gene” was discovered: British scientists say that people who inherit a particular version of the FTO gene are 70 per cent more likely to be obese thanks to the influence the gene has on the metabolism.

Research released last year even implicates FTO in polycystic ovarian syndrome, which can affect fertility.

The reason the breakthrough is so important? It’s hoped it could lead to new treatments for obesity, which could be timely news for Australians, with this decade also seeing our nation surpass the US
and be declared the world’s fattest country.

A vaccine for tobacco addiction was developed: Due to be released later this year, 2009 saw this vaccine enter its final stage of trials. Called NicVAX, it works by encouraging the body to produce antibodies that bind themselves to nicotine particles in the body.

This makes the particles too big to pass into the brain, which inhibits the release of dopamine – the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and therefore addiction.

It goes without saying why this one could be such a breakthrough: nine out of 10 cases of lung cancer are caused by smoking and, according to a 2009 report, it’s a habit that carries a social cost of $31 billion to the Australian economy each year.

Despite that, three million Australians are still regular puffers.

A drug to cure shyness became one step closer: For anyone with a fear of public speaking, this will be music to their nerves.

The ingredient under the spotlight is good old oxytocin, the so-called “love hormone” that does everything from help mums bond with their newborns to inducing a post-coital afterglow.

But research this decade showed how oxytocin may also have a role to play in helping people with social phobias and anxiety disorders overcome their fears. More research is needed, but for the two million Australians living with anxiety, it’s good news.

Human organs were successfully “grown”: One of the biggest breakthroughs in the arena occurred in our own backyard when Melbourne researchers grew beating heart tissue in a lab environment in 2006. A world-first at the time, it could one day lead to the creation, or growth, of entire human organs.

“This important discovery has huge ramifications for the thousands of people worldwide whose survival depends on transplants, especially heart patients,” lead researcher professor Wayne Morrison said when the breakthrough was first reported to the media.

A contraceptive pill that stops periods for 12 months became available: That may sound like heaven to some (no more cramps, bloating, PMS…). Called Lybrel, it hit the US market in 2007 and is the world’s first birth control pill that delivers the same low dose of hormones day in, day out, with the result being no period for 365 days. Why is it a breakthrough?

It shows just how far we’ve come since the first Pill was made available in the 1960s.

A new cancer gene was unlocked: In 2009, researchers in the UK reported that they had pinpointed a gene that could be linked to more than half of all breast cancers.

They called it the biggest DNA cancer breakthrough in 20 years. Called NRG1, the gene is believed to be a key tumour suppresser. While everyone is born with the gene intact, for some reason it can become damaged, and when that happens, it allows cancer to thrive.

Supporting the theory is the fact that when the researchers analysed breast cancer samples, they found that at least part of the gene had often been lost.

Arlene Wilkie, spokesperson for the UK’s Breast Cancer Campaign, which part-funded the study, says: “This research is a major step forward in understanding the genetics of cancer and could open up a host of new strategies to improve diagnosis and treatment.”

A vaccine for the H1N1 virus was released: Apart from anything else, this was significant because it reinvigorated what had to be the biggest health story of 2009 (and arguably the decade): swine flu.

In fact, according to the World Health Organization, the swine flu situation became a pandemic (the first official flu pandemic in 41 years) after a spike in Australian cases pushed the worldwide numbers up in June 2009.

Released to the world late last year, the vaccine proved to be 95 per cent effective after just one dose.

Researchers grew stem cells from human skin:

US and Japanese researchers made the breakthrough in 2007 to 2008, when they discovered they could “reprogram” adult skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells.

The big deal? In the future, it’s possible those same cells will be able to be transformed into any and every type of cell (beta islet cells to treat diabetes or motor neuron cells to treat Parkinson’s disease), without having to go near the more controversial method currently used to reprogram, or develop stem cells, called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).

Source: Herald Sun