For someone like me
it's easy to forget that personalised medicine isn't just about genomics.
Eric
Topol's The
Creative Destruction of Medicine is
a book for genomicists who want to know what's going on in health care
innovation outside of genomics. It's also a book for everyone else working in a
health-related field who wants to understand the changes that are happening in
medicine right now outside of their specialisation.
The central thesis
of the book is that there are several areas of innovation in medicine -
genomics, wireless sensors, health IT, social networking, and novel ways of
assessing drug efficacy - that could each have a large impact, but that together
they could change medicine beyond recognition.
There are many parts
of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
that are excellent. The section on large clinical trials as an out-dated way of
assessing drug efficacy and safety is one of them. Topol thinks that
conditional approval would be a better alternative: Drugs that can reasonably
be assumed to be safe are initially tested on a small group of patients under
strictl regulation. The regulatory agency has the right to withdraw
the conditional approval at any time, and only once a reasonably large dataset
has been collected does the drug gain full approval.
Topol clearly loves
his medical gadgets. I was amazed by some of the ones he describes, like a
pocketable ultrasound device that allows imaging the heart in real time and
that may soon replace that symbol of the medical profession, the stethoscope. My biggest complaint
is that parts of the book are not entirely relevant to its central topic and
have probably only been included because they are of interest to the author.
For example, Topol is clearly passionate about the dangers posed by the ionising
radiation that come with excessive use of medical imaging technology such as
CT scans, but two chapters on this are too much.
If you wonder
whether The Creative Destruction of Medicine
is for you, here are the most important facts:
Areas covered: The
convergence of wireless sensors, genomics, information systems, mobile
connectivity, internet, social networking, and computing power. Basically
anything that has to do with personalised medicine
Who it is for:
Doctors and anyone else working in healthcare, including researchers. As
someone working in genomics, I felt that the book did an excellent job of
putting genomics into perspective
Who it is not for:
This book is not a guide for patients to personalised medicine. Some of topics, such as the challenges of
compatibility between different proprietary Health IT systems, will be less applicable
to Europe than to the United States
How much it costs:
The recommended retail price for the hardcover is $27.99, but online the book is available for $15.58. The Kindle edition is a bit more expensive
and costs $15.73.
If you think you're
going to buy this book, do so sooner rather than later: The rate of progress in
medicine means that it'll be out-dated in a year.
Again, thanks to the
Sanger Institute Library for ordering this book following my suggestion.