2023 was a year of revolutionary research in the health field. As the year draws to a close, we review some of the most significant advances.
Aaron James, a high-voltage power grid worker in the US, lost most of his face after accidentally touching a wire of 7200 volts in 2021. In May 2023, he underwent a rare eye transplant, in addition to a partial one, in which more than 140 health professionals participated. Surgeons at NYU Langone Health in New York, who performed the complicated operation, reported in November that James was recovering well from the double transplant and that the donated eye seemed extraordinarily healthy.
Doctors say James’ operation gives scientists an unprecedented window into understanding how the human eye tries to heal. They also said that there was direct blood flow to the retina, the part of the eye that sends images to the brain. Although there is no certainty that James will regain vision in his new eye, doctors do not rule out that possibility either. The donated face and eye came from a single male donor in his 30s. During the operation, doctors injected adult stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow into the optic nerve to stimulate recovery. After the accident, James had to have his left eye removed due to pain and has undergone numerous surgeries, including one to fit a prosthetic arm. His right eye still works. He is the 19th person in the United States to undergo a face transplant.
In 2023, the University of Oxford developed a second vaccine for malaria, a disease that kills hundreds of thousands of people a year.
After more than a century of scientific efforts, the world finally has an affordable malaria vaccine. The vaccine was developed by the University of Oxford and is the second malaria vaccine to be achieved. It comes two years after GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) developed the first one, called RTS,S. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the effectiveness of both vaccines is “very similar” and there is no evidence that one is better than the other. However, the key difference is that Oxford University’s vaccine, called R21, can be manufactured on a large scale. The world‘s largest vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India, is already set to manufacture more than 100 million doses a year and plans to increase its production to 200 million doses annually. So far, there are only 18 million doses of RTS,S. The WHO stated that the new R21 vaccine will be a “vital additional tool”. Each dose costs between US$2 and US$4 and four doses are needed per person. This is approximately half the price of the RTS,S. The two vaccines use similar technologies and target the same phase of the malaria parasite’s life cycle. However, the new vaccine is easier to make, requiring a smaller dose and using a simpler adjuvant (a chemical added to the vaccine to activate the immune system). Among mosquito-borne diseases, malaria is the deadliest and 95% of cases occur in Africa. In 2021, there were 247 million cases of malaria, and 619,000 people died, mostly children under five years old.
A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool reveals to what extent alcohol consumption, smoking, poor diet, and lack of exercise prematurely age the heart of a person. The objective is to find ways to reverse the aging of the heart to reduce the risks of many age-related conditions, such as stroke and heart disease. The first step is to perform an MRI after gentle exercise. The system was developed by a team led by Professor Declan O’Regan, from the Medical Research Council’s London Institute of Medical Sciences. “When we look someone in the face, we are able to judge whether he looks young or old for his age; the same thing happens with our organs,” says Professor Declan O’Regan. There are many ways to measure heart health, such as scans, electrocardiograms (ECGs), and blood pressure, but they are only a snapshot of the current situation and can vary from day to day or month to month. According to Professor O’Regan, AI analyzes show the bumps and scrapes accumulated by the heart over a lifetime. The process involves performing an MRI (MRI) of the heart after exercising. Because the first signs of premature aging can be so subtle, even expert cardiologists fail to detect them. But the artificial intelligence tool can, since it was fed with the images of 40,000 people with different degrees of heart health, along with their corresponding clinical outcomes. The system analyzes hundreds of tiny details of three-dimensional movement of MRI and compares them with those of 5,000 people of different ages who have led healthy lifestyles. “We don’t know if premature aging of the heart is due to genes as we are born destined to have an older heart or if it is more due to our lifestyle,” says Professor O’Regan. “Genetics could help us slow or reverse aging, and these scans could also help evaluate new therapies.”
Scientists developed a 3D printed implant to help patients suffering from knee osteoarthritis. Custom osteotomy, a surgical procedure in which a bone is cut or realigned, is designed to preserve a patient’s existing knee joint. The technique developed by scientists at the University of Bath aims to make operations faster and safer. The implant preserves the existing joint and can be used at an earlier stage of arthritis, before a knee replacement is necessary. 3D plates are used to realign the patient’s knee, making it more stable, comfortable, and capable of supporting weight than with existing generic plates. To calculate the degree of correction a patient needs, doctors perform an X-ray and CT scan of the tibia. A guide stabilizer plate is then made with the 3D printer. It is temporarily attached to the patient’s tibia, one of the two bones that make up the leg, and two screws are then inserted, creating a wedge in the bone to correct its alignment. Following an initial safety test with five patients, a further 50 in England and Wales are being recruited to take part in a trial comparing traditional knee replacement with this technique.
For the first time in the world, scientists removed a live 8cm worm from the brain of an Australian woman. The “rope-like structure” was removed from the patient’s damaged frontal lobe during surgery in Canberra last year, but the report of the operation was not published until this year. Doctors were stunned when they found the live worm. “It was definitely not what we expected. Everyone was surprised,” said Dr. Hari Priya Bandi, the surgeon in charge of the operation. The woman, 64 years old, had been suffering from symptoms such as stomach pain for months, cough, and night sweats, which evolved into forgetfulness and depression. She was admitted to the hospital in late January 2021, and a scan revealed “an atypical lesion in the right frontal lobe of the brain.” The researchers warn that this case highlights the growing danger of disease transmission and infections from animals to people.