Emerging Health Care Innovation Brief: Low-Dose Lithium for Post-COVID Conditions, Treating Pediatric Low-Grade Glioma (January 19-February 1, 2023)
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Highlights
Highlights provide a timely synopsis of selected interesting developments emerging in the last two weeks from the information universe covered by the PCORI Health Care Horizon Scanning System (HCHSS). Information covers currently emerging innovations in patient-centered care that may or may not be directly related to the Topics to Watch. The views presented here are solely those of ECRI Horizon Scanning and have not been vetted by other stakeholders.
The US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA’s) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee has voted unanimously to support development of annual vaccines to match future SARS-CoV-2 strains. Recent data show that the current bivalent boosters are significantly more effective than the previous monovalent boosters at protecting against severe Omicron infection and show promise against subvariants XBB and XBB.1.5 plus CH.1.1 and CA.3.1.
Post-COVID conditions continue to keep many out of work, but there are preliminary hopes of prevention through treatment with the mood stabilizer lithium (see Topics to Watch), the antiviral drug Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir), or the diabetes drug metformin.
These past two weeks saw fascinating early signs of the healthcare future. Electronic health records suggest 22 possible links between viral infections and brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, while a speech brain–computer interface implant has reportedly allowed a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) to communicate 62 words per minute.
New tools for modifying T cells, such as CRISPR (a genetic tool using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) and synthetic biology, may make future CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor T-cell) therapies less expensive and less dangerous, according to a recent news item in the journal Nature. The review charts progress made in treatment of solid tumors, particularly for gliomas. See Topics to Watch for a glioma treatment that is on the horizon.
Topics to Watch
ECRI Horizon Scanning has selected the topics below as those with potential for impact within the PCORI HCHSS’s focus areas in the United States within the next 3 years. All views presented are preliminary and based on readily available information at the time of writing. Because these topics are rapidly developing, we cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information after the date listed on this publication. In addition, all views expressed in the commentary section are solely those of ECRI Horizon Scanning and have not been vetted by other stakeholders. Topics are listed in alphabetical order.
Low-Dose Lithium to Treat Post-COVID Conditions
At a Glance
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For a description and commentary about this topic/issue, download this Innovation Brief.
Tovorafenib (DAY101) to Treat Relapsed or Progressing Pediatric Low-Grade Glioma
At a Glance
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For a description and commentary about this topic/issue, download this Innovation Brief.
Horizon scanning is a systematic process that serves as an early alert system to inform decision makers about possible future opportunities and threats. Health care horizon scanning identifies technologies, innovations, and trends with the potential to cause future shifts or disruptions—positive or negative—in areas such as access to care, care delivery processes, care setting, costs of care, current treatment models or paradigms, health disparities, health care infrastructure, public health, and patient health outcomes.
The PCORI Health Care Horizon Scanning System (HCHSS) conducts horizon scanning to better inform research investments at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). PCORI defines the HCHSS project scope to focus on interventions with high potential for disruption in the United States in the next 12 months within 6 focus areas: Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, infectious diseases (including COVID-19), mental and behavioral health conditions, and rare diseases. In addition, the system captures high-level disruptive trends across all clinical areas, which may lead PCORI to expand the project scope to include other focus areas in the future.
The HCHSS produces 3 main outputs:
- Emerging Health Care Innovation Brief provides ECRI Horizon Scanning with a vehicle to inform PCORI and the public in a timely manner of important topics of interest identified during ongoing scanning and topic identification or through the ECRI stakeholder survey process.
- PCORI’s Horizon Scanning Database offers health care decision makers findings about advancements in the HCHSS’s 6 focus areas. This database can be used by patients, care partners, and others to track advancements in care options.
- High Potential Disruption Reports (every 6 months) for individuals with vested interests in new technologies, services, and innovations. It might provide critical insights and information about the areas in which they have a vested interest, which might include their vision and plans for how they intend to adopt an innovation. These reports highlight those topics that stakeholders (eg, patients, physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, public health professionals, first responders, health systems experts, clinical engineers, researchers, business and finance professionals, and information technology professionals) identified as having potential for high disruption.
In January 2023, the HCHSS Biweekly COVID-19 Scans were broadened in scope to include any emerging intervention in the HCHSS and renamed as the Emerging Health Care Innovation Brief.
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Posted: February 15, 2023
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