People in healthcare were greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been 2 years and the global effect is still being felt due to how tremendously overwhelming the pandemic was. Aside from epidemiology and vaccinations being the focus during the pandemic, other sectors like oncology have also been impacted. Notwithstanding the availability of a variety of innovative, more effective treatments that are tailored toward cancer patients. Many cancer patients have had difficulty receiving diagnosis and treatment due to overburdening of hospitals and doctors by COVID-19 patients. The pandemic, on the other hand, has brought about certain favorable adjustments that are beneficial to the oncology sector.

Digital Tools and Telemedicine

The transition to telemedicine in 2020 gave cancer institutions new ways to address underprivileged people that are undiagnosed or untreated. For patients living in remote locations who have challenges with traveling, telehealth is quicker and inexpensive. It’s also easily accessible, and also safer, especially for immunocompromised patients.

There’s been a spike in digital tools like the use of smartphone healthcare apps. Aside from apps, wearable devices that are in tandem with telehealth are also popular. Technologies that assist in monitoring patients in remote areas have provided medical practitioners with a plethora of consistent data. The data can be obtained without requiring a physical interaction. This provides patients with access to more choices and they can easily know the status of their health.

Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Data collected through digital technologies becomes extremely valuable when combined with AI-based predictive analytics and machine learning. This data is beneficial to the health of the individual patient, to marketing, research, and product development.

Understanding healthcare data, as well as the best ways to act on it, will be critical in 2022 and in the future. Pharmaceutical businesses will need to gather, analyze, and review data, and make future projections. They’ll also need to learn how to interpret raw data into models that illustrate product effectiveness and quality.

Drug development often takes ten years or longer to complete. However, given the present atmosphere of collaboration and acceleration, these timelines could be reduced. Researchers can build collaborative AI systems using rich sources of data without invasiveness or revealing confidential information about the patient. This serves as a guide for reliable AI systems in areas where data is limited. Areas such as rare cancers and pediatric oncology.

Precision Medicine

Precision medicine is booming in the cancer sector, as developments in immunotherapy threaten to render radiation and chemotherapy obsolete. New strategies to fight cancer are constantly being developed by researchers. New tests and therapies are constantly being introduced to the market. This ranges from genetic, somatic, germline testing, immunotherapy, as well as pharmacogenomics.

While combination medications aren’t new, checkpoint inhibitors are. Researchers are now experimenting with them in conjunction with practically every other cancer treatment. This study has the potential to drastically alter the pharmaceutical industry, especially on the relevance of any medicine that works well with PD-L1 and PD-1 inhibitors.