MODERN medicine is advancing at such a rapid rate that it would be completely unrecognisable to even the most advanced practitioner from 50 years ago, let alone 100 years.

These advances have allowed the average person to live longer, work harder and achieve more in their lifetime.

And the onset of the computer age has increased the pace and regularity of these changes, with smaller instruments, better pharmaceuticals and more skilled doctors performing miracles every day.

Myanmar may not be on the cutting edge of this change but they filter down quickly and ordinary people enjoy the fruits of this change whenever they step into a hospital.

One liver specialist physician from the Yangon General Hospital’s Department of Hepatology (Liver Unit), Professor Khin Maung Win, explains some of the advances in Myanmar’s healthcare sector.

Focussing on his expertise in liver disease, Professor Khin Maung Win says the major developments in medical technologies at the moment are in virus detection and monitoring, molecular analysis and medical imaging.

“The changes are swift. Modern medical devices can detect the level of the virus’ infection and how the drugs are likely to affect the problem,” he says.

As viruses mutate from their interactions with drugs and pharmaceuticals, thousands of new products are made every year and many more are in the pipeline. Consumers pay the costs for this progress.

Dr Khin Maung Win says research on pathology and diagnosis techniques changed in the 1980s after the emergence of new DNA amplifying technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

“It has been a major change in the medical field. It helps physicians to know the exact genotypes of the virus’ they are dealing with and their mutations, which is helpful for treatment,” he says.

PCR is now a common technique used in the medical field for the detection of hereditary diseases and the diagnosis of infectious diseases.

Yangon’s 30th Street Clinic is one centre that offers PCR medical diagnosis to patients.

Professor Khin Maung Win says that in the surgical field, transplantation operations for internal organs has become fairly common, with new techniques emerging all the time.

“An extremely futuristic operation called a Hepatocyte transplant is being researched and tested for treating cirrhosis of the liver. It is much like a bone marrow transplant and doesn’t require the complete transplanting of the liver, as has traditionally been the practice. It just needs a slice of healthy donor liver tissue that is attached to the patient’s damaged liver, with the hope that it will grow.”

If such operations prove successful for liver diseases, similar tissue transplant operations will become common for other organs and parts of body. He predicts that organ transplant, as we know it now, will be obsolete within 10 years. And surgeons in Myanmar are not far behind.

Another medical field enjoying rapid technological advancement is the realm of imaging systems, which clearly show whatever ails patients.

Computer Tomography equipment – known as CT scans – are increasingly advanced and are able to render internal organs and bones in a detailed format; good enough to show exactly what is happening inside a patient’s body.

“Magnetic Resonance Imaging system (MRI) is the newest technology superior and is superior to CT scans. Unlike CT scans, it uses magnetic fields instead of radioactive rays to show objects.

“Patients can be scanned many times without any side effects, unlike CT scans. The latest MRI machines are able to draw accurate three dimensional images of organs,” Dr Khin Maung Win says.

Last but by no means least is the overcoming of fertility problems through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) techniques, which help couples all over the world have children every year.

Nearly 30 years after the first ever test tube baby was born in England, the IVF technique debuted in Myanmar last August, with help from a group of medical specialists from Yangon’s Bohosi International Clinic.

Three out of 22 couples receiving the IVF treatment have now conceived a child at 13.6 percent success rate, while another eight couples are awaiting treatment.

Dr May Thu Myo Nyunt, an obstetrics and gynaecological specialist at the Bohosi Clinic, says the cost of the initial procedure at Bohosi International Clinic is considerably less than what one would pay in Singapore or Thailand.