Lung tissue replicated by researchers to explore better treatment options | Slone Partners

Cancer care may be rather effective in the United States, but it does not come without a cost.

A study in the April edition of Health Affairs found that Americans are more likely to survive cancer than Europeans – 11.1 years after the initial diagnosis, compared with 9.3 years. Better health outcomes did come at a significant cost though. Although no figures after 1999 were studied, costs in the United States increased by 49 percent between 1983 to 1999, compared with 16 percent growth in Europe.

"Using conservative market estimates of the value of a statistical life, this study presented evidence that U.S. cancer survival gains are worth more than the corresponding growth in the cost of U.S. cancer care according to the most recent data available for analysis," the study's authors wrote, according to NPR.

To further reduce these costs, while still guaranteeing the best possible health outcomes for patients, healthcare professionals in the United States are increasingly relying on personalized medical treatments to enhance health outcomes for patients. Researchers seem to develop a new technique every day for treating new conditions, and this week brings with it an advanced method for treating cystic fibrosis and lung cancer.

According to Science Daily, Massachusetts General Hospital researchers were recently able to replicate the tissue found lining the part of the lungs that are targeted by those diseases. As such, researchers will now be able to treat the tissue, including those containing the genes responsible for several common lung conditions, as a means to test out new medicinal techniques without affecting the patient directly.

As new techniques involving personalized medicine and genetics are used to combat diseases, diagnostic laboratories need to be prepared to constantly innovate and explore cost-effective treatment strategies, in addition to analyzing medical information.

This article is brought to you by Slone Partners, a leading laboratory recruitment firm in the emerging sciences of molecular, clinical, and in-vitro diagnostics, anatomic pathology and personalized medicine.

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