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Recent paper describing the insufficiency of testing new mesh products
Here is an interesting article about how new mesh products are tested. I was struck by how much effort they put in to describing the testing for a problem that does not really exist, and how they completely ignored the main problem with mesh products.
They say at the end that they are planning to put more effort in to developing test procedures to more correctly describe the qualities of new mesh products, for a problem that does not seem to be significant. The Conflicts paragraph shows why, I think.
Overall though, the article has some good historical references. It is a well-written paper, about not much, that illustrates how randomly new products are introduced to market, and also how many are already out there, unproven, yet being implanted daily.
The field is very fascinating from a scientific/business/marketing/societal point of view. It’s just a shame that so many people are being damaged while it goes on.
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
Alastair Windsor Speaker bureau: BARD, TelaBio, Medtronic, Cook.” To this day, hundreds of different mesh products have been tested and sold, with at least 70 different mesh products on the market [3].”
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10029-020-02360-x
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3 Replies
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I’m guessing it’s similar to any product – dozens of options but little to no tangible difference between them all besides branding and marketing. It all ends up performing in much the same way. Obviously certain “innovations” can end up causing serious problems, and I would doubt that any “improvements” really make much of a difference. It’s all mostly the same stuff. Just plastic scaffolding. And yes, I think hospitals have contracts that are probably largely based on price or existing business relationships. But I agree – it’s weird that there are so many options for something like this. But when it comes to capitalism, anything that has such a huge profit margin (I am assuming this is the case as it’s mostly just plastic, and hospitals in the US seem to pay an absolute fortune for everything way beyond what it’s worth) is going to result in lots of companies trying to get in on the deal.
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It is downright baffling how the manufacturers have developed such a wide array of mesh products, each having enough similitude to existing products to be granted approval. The fact that there are 70 different products available is head spinning. I wonder how a hospital or surgeon can discern which products are suitable for their patients, given the overwhelming number of options available. My guess is that certain networks have contracts with specific suppliers, and many that many of these suppliers have products that overlap with their competitors.
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Here’s a crazy thought.
Suppose we took all of the resources that are being dumped into developing, testing, and approving variations on the mesh theme and instead, used those resources to train doctors on how to perform tissue repairs.
I’m serious. Just think about that for one moment.
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