The coronavirus and the different vaccines that have been developed throughout the year to be able to combat it have taken the leading role in 2020. However, although it may not seem like it, these twelve months have also left us many other medical advances that are very far from Covid-19 and the multiple attempts to stop it. 2020 has also been the year where a Spaniard almost wins a Nobel, the year of pioneering transplants in Spain or the year where the drive to eradicate hepatitis C was recognized.
In fact, just a few months ago, on October 5, the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona held the first uterus transplant in Spain. A pioneering operation in which up to 20 health workers participated and whose procedure was possible thanks to the live donation of the uterus from one sister to another.
A process that began five years ago and is highly complex, especially with regard to the first phase of extraction of the donor’s uterus, since it is a “complex organ with poor vascularization of the arteries and a large network of veins of which you have to look for the largest ones to drain the blood that reaches the uterus”, As explained Antonio Alcaraz, head of the Urology and Kidney Transplant Service of Hospital Clínic and the person in charge of leading this historic intervention that lasted approximately 15 hours.
First heart transplant from a non-heart beating donor
Another pioneering transplant took place at the beginning of the year at the Puerta de Hierro University Hospital in Majadahonda, where the first heart transplant was performed from a patient who died due to cardiorespiratory arrest in Spain. To date, all heart donations made in our country came from patients with brain death. This type of transplant, also called controlled asystole donation, has been the main form of expansion of the activity of donation and transplantation of organs such as kidneys or liver in recent years in our country, reaching up to a third of the total donations made in Spain in 2019 according to data from the ONT.
In the procedure that was carried out at the Puerta de Hierro, the deceased patient’s heart is recovered before its extraction, thanks to a extracorporeal circulation machine called ECMO that keeps the organ functioning. Once good function is confirmed, the heart is removed and implanted in the new recipient.
Breast cancer: more precise treatments
Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed tumor in women. In 2020, only in Spain, some 32,953 cases have been diagnosed, according to the SEOM. However, this year, there have been several great advances in this type of cancer. One of the most important, the study RxPONDER, promoted by the US SWOG Cancer Research Network, which has had the support of the National Cancer Institute and which has been carried out in 632 specialized centers in nine countries, including Spain, has provided scientific evidence that postmenopausal women affected by the subtype of breast cancer called luminal, one of the most frequent, they will be able to avoid chemotherapy treatment and only undergo hormone therapy, the treatment having the same efficacy and identical prognosis.
Hemolytic anemias and deletion of fusion genes
Researchers Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna were awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work in the CRISPR / Cas9 gene editing tool, leaving the Spanish biologist Francis Martínez-Mojica out of the race for the Nobel. However, its role in the development of this tool has been essential for the study of genetic treatments that bring us ever closer to the cure of hemolytic anemias.
In this same field, the Spanish Sandra Rodríguez-Perales, who directs the Molecular Cytogenetics Unit at the National Center for Oncological Research (CNIO), also demonstrated the efficacy of CRISPR / Cas9 technology to eliminate fusion genes. Opening the doors in the future to the development of new oncological therapies, since “many chromosomal rearrangements and fusion genes that are produced are the origin of childhood sarcomas and leukemias”, explained Sandra Rodríguez-Perales herself.
Alzheimer’s: blood tests and speed of diagnosis
Blood tests that improve ability to diagnose frontotemporal dementia, as in the case of Alzheimer’s disease, are increasingly close to becoming a reality, as confirmed by the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN)
A study carried out by the Hospital Sant Pau Memory Unit in collaboration with the University of San Francisco, analyzes the role of neurofilament light chain (NfL) blood levels and total tau levels for the diagnosis of dementia frontotemporal. Revealing how the latter are lower than the blood levels of NfL and with it be able to detect the level of brain atrophy and predict clinical deterioration.
Hepatitis C
American researchers Harvey J Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M Rice have been awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. The three scientists carried out essential research for the identification and detection of the agent responsible for hepatitis C, thus allowing the development of much more sensitive blood tests that allow detecting the majority of infected blood samples and avoiding the transmission of the infection.
Although it may contain statements, data or notes from health institutions or professionals, the information contained in Redacción Médica is edited and prepared by journalists. We recommend that the reader be consulted with any health-related question with a healthcare professional.
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