medicine

The Spanish Minister of Health, Dolors Montserrat, defended on Wednesday that the current political debate in Catalonia, where the government plans to hold an independence referendum in autumn, does not damage Barcelona's candidacy to host the European Medicines Agency. In comments to the press from Brussels, where she held meetings with the Health Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis and the Secretary-Generals of the Commission and the Council, Montserrat said that “no one” had raised the issue of independence. “We are the government of all Catalans and we want the EMA in Barcelona. I am strongly convinced that (the independence debate) does not affect this at all. No one has asked me about it,” she insisted. Montserrat said that the Catalan capital is already “ready” to host the 900 EMA staff members at the iconic Torre Agbar building and said that Barcelona “fulfills” all the criteria.

He was the director of the prestigious ophthalmologist clinic Barraquer in Barcelona, founded in 1947 by his father and world-renowned doctor Ignasi Barraquer. Joaquim Barraquer was Professor of Eye Surgery at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and Honorary Professor and Doctor Honoris Causa at several other universities. He was a specialist in corneal transplants and eye surgery to treat cataracts, glaucoma and myopia.

A team of surgeons at the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital in the Catalan capital successfully removed a tumour from a five year old child by first preparing and practicing the “highly complex” procedure on a 3D printed tumour. The child had neuroblastoma, a difficult cancer to extirpate because of the surrounding blood vessels and arteries. In such cases, testing the procedure in advance "is key" because it allows surgeons to study the most effective way of extracting the tumour without damaging other tissues, and to test the method before surgery. This has been possible thanks to the use of a 3D replica of the tumour.

The Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) has introduced a world pioneering technique which allows four out of five patients who cannot undergo surgery to survive the illness. This technique causes less after-effects than the traditional radiotherapy. Furthermore, statistics show that with the regular treatment, two thirds of these patients die. However, Ferran Gadea, the Head of the Radiotherapy and Oncology Service, says that the best option to cure a lung cancer is still to undergo the operation when possible.

A better use of body organs has led to an increase in transplant rates in Catalonia despite a lower number of donors. In 2012, 872 organ transplants were made in Catalan hospitals and waiting lists were reduced by 4.6%. Lung transplants increased by 35% and heart donors increased by 18.7%.

The scientists working at the HIVACAT project for the development of an effective cure against the HIV virus are hopeful of finding a vaccine in the near future that would stop patients having to be treated for their whole life, actually eradicating the disease. The researchers have tested a first vaccine that has proved effective in reducing the viral load by up to 95%. However, the vaccine effects are only temporary, so researchers will continue the investigation in order to achieve a permanent effect.