A lot of recent and ongoing developments in finding ways other than needles to administer medicine.
In January, drug giant Pfizer won approval to market inhalable insulin, a product that in three years is expected to produce $1 billion annually as diabetics abandon injections.
The breakthrough is one of the most high-profile advances yet among a small cadre of physicians committed to eliminating — or at least dramatically reducing — needle use in medical treatments. Despite entrenched needle use among doctors, researchers are moving ahead with a number of injection alternatives, from micro-needles too tiny to inflict pain, to new forms of pills capable of delivering drug payloads orally.
“This is a big bone of contention with me,” said John Patton, chief scientific officer of Nektar Therapeutics and co-inventor of the first FDA-approved inhalable insulin. “The medical profession does not think needles are a problem for people after they get used to them, and that it’s just something that they can deal with. They just don’t realize that people don’t like needles at all.”
I suppose it’s a lot easier when you’re on the administering end than on the receiving end.
The advantage of needles, of course, is direct delivery to the bloodstream. But not only are needles dangerous (385,000 needle-stick injuries to health-care workers in hospitals a year), but they may actually inhibit people seeking out treatment.
All of us instinctively shrink from needles, although most can overcome the flight reflex in order to undergo necessary medical treatments. But a surprisingly large minority of people suffer a form of needle phobia so extreme that they would rather let severe injuries and illnesses go untreated than get stuck with a pointy piece of metal.
Family physician Dr. James Hamilton is the author of the only large, peer-reviewed study on the phenomenon, “Needle Phobia: A Neglected Diagnosis,” published in the August 1995 issue of The Journal of Family Practice. Hamilton, who himself suffers from needle phobia, found that the malady is often overlooked or not taken seriously by doctors, although it may affect up to 10 percent of the population.
Keith Lamb, another needle-phobia sufferer who is co-writing a book on the condition with Hamilton, said he’s interviewed 1,500 people with severe needle phobias, and almost all of them have encountered doctors who don’t take their issues with needles seriously.
I hate needles with a passion such that I can’t watch even a simulated injection on TV or in a movie. It doesn’t stop me from getting needed injections (or giving blood, for that matter), but I can understand how it might for some people.
Anything that can make medication application safer, less painful, and less stressful, sounds like a fine idea to me, whether doctors think it’s “necessary” or not.
(via GeekPress)