cool things we should all want (not)

Three articles in the most recent New England Journal of Medicine describe more new medical technology, and have made me curl my toes in mental conflict.

1. A pacemaker that goes into both the right and left chambers of the heart, rather than just the right side, preserves heart function better, according to ultrasound tests. It is a much trickier (read inaccessible, expensive, desirable) procedure than the standard one, and the patients don’t actually feel any better or act any healthier than with the standard kind of pacemaker.

2. Giving an intravenous iron supplement that I’ve never heard of before (new) (they didn’t test the ones I have heard of before) can improve heart function and health in patients who have congestive heart failure and are iron deficient. How odd that they didn’t evaluate oral iron supplements which have been generic since before I was born and are the standard treatment for iron deficiency. Is it just possible that the new product will be the only product approved for treating congestive heart failure in patients with iron deficiency? Is it just possible that it will cost some jaw dropping amount of money?

3. In people who have heart failure so bad that they would need a heart transplant to survive, but they are not well enough to survive a heart transplant, use of a mechanical pump can prolong their life, and can be used somewhat indefinitely. Only 1/4 of these people will live a year with this technology, and 17% of those treated will have a major stroke. The cost of the technology wasn’t mentioned, and quality of life was not addressed.

We continue to move towards technology that is more expensive, more resource consuming and does not seem to improve quality of life, at least in clinical research. Frequently practice follows close on the heels of research. A good journal still publishes studies like the intravenous iron one that may influence practice without any evaluation of possibly equivalent less expensive and resource intensive alternatives.

Whence my internal conflict? Clinical science occasionally barks up the right tree, and contributes to the health and happiness of people. It also burns money like it is nothing, as if resources were unlimited.

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