This last year has seen many new and wonderful medical breakthroughs, making it difficult to narrow these down to only 5 top medical breakthroughs in 2011, but I will list the five I believe have the most profound effects on the everyday person’s life.
5) Dogs used to detect Lung Cancer in patients:
Researchers in Germany proved in a study that man’s best friend can detect lung cancer in people. They proved that trained dogs were able to identify 71 out of 100 patients who had lung cancer. This unorthodox study is astounding, and opens up many other questions as to what other animals in other ways could help the medical and scientific community in the care and treatment of humans?
4) New Malaria Vaccine:
Touted as the first ever vaccine for Malaria was found, and it is proving to very effective in protecting millions against Malaria, especially in areas where Malaria is rampant. This definitely deserves to be on the list of the top five medical breakthroughs of 2011, as this vaccine is already having an impact on the hope for the countless millions of people who are at risk of contracting Malaria yearly.
3) The Cloning of Stem Cells:
The controversy over “human” rights surrounding the research and use of embryonic stem cells may find this new breakthrough an appealing compromise. It is now possible for scientists to actually clone stem cells, which would eliminate the need and use of an embryo. The scientific community believes that this is a big step toward complete healthy mammal cloning, which also implies the future cloning of humans.
2) Creating body parts:
In what seems like science fiction scientists can now create real life functioning body parts in the laboratory. At Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine, researchers had created a urethra that when placed into a patient, functioned like a natural organ. Another amazing feat by a British scientist using stem cells had created a human kidney, which could very possibly result in patients being able to grow their own organs as needed in the very near future.
1) HIV prevention Drugs:
Finally, last year the Journal Science published a study that reveals that drugs used to treat HIV actually can prevent a person from contracting HIV. This new approach to fighting HIV is definitely at the top of the medical breakthroughs list for 2011.
Emily is a health blogger and contributing writer for IBSTreatment, a site that outlines the variety of ways IBS suffers can handle their IBS symptoms, including using Levsin for IBS treatment.
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