Future of CT Surgery in transplants, cell therapy, and tissue engineering?

[VoiceofReason]

I read something interesting in this article today:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3177646.ece

And I got to thinking that the emerging technologies these days might cause the second coming of cardiothoracic and even general surgery. If we could devise a way to grow new organs for people from their own cells, couldn't that solve a whole host of problems and possibly cause an explosion in these specialties? No need for immunosuppressants and no more shortage of organs. No more dialysis machines, just get a new kidney, no more heart failure, just get a new heart, etc..

The article is about building new organs from the "protein-skeleton" foundation on up with progenitor cells. I decided to take a look at Professor Doris Taylor's other work over at the University of Minnesota and it's all very interesting. She is working on therapies that will be able to rejuvenate or just straight replace damaged/diseased or otherwise failing organs. I feel like this might be the ticket for some floundering specialties. Thoughts?


Late Edit: this also has me thinking that transplant (cell and whole organ) fellowships might become the next big thing as well.

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[pseudoknot]

I think it will be decades before tissue engineered organs as complex as the heart or kidney will be used in patients. There are a lot of hard problems that have to be solved. It's impossible to predict how this will affect any specialties or turf wars.

 

[droliver]

There's no "second coming" coming, in that they will never make the salary they did for decades. At the heart of the disatisfaction in the field are the 60-70% pay cuts per RVU since the late 1980's

 

[VoiceofReason]

There's no "second coming" coming, in that they will never make the salary they did for decades. At the heart of the disatisfaction in the field are the 60-70% pay cuts per RVU since the late 1980's

Oh what I was referring to was the trend toward medical management and minimal invasiveness, as well as the extensive specialization, which is leaving CT with fewer procedures as the older procedures are not necessary (because other procedures are superior) or are being done by other specialists like cardiologists.

Transplants and cell therapy (as it is conceived) are both things that would pretty much require good surgical skills. So out of this technology might grow a few new cool procedures that could replenish the repetoire of operations. That was my rationale.

 

[Blade28]

There's no "second coming" coming, in that they will never make the salary they did for decades.

Very true.