EAST AND WEST COMPARING MEDICINE THANKS TO S&R FARMACEUTICI

With ‘PartOriente’ training day for specialists interested in the Asian approach to patients. In Bastia Umbra similarities and differences were discussed to improve everyday medical practice

In a globalised world, contact between East and West is becoming increasingly common, this also applies in medicine. In order to delve deeper into differences and similarities in both cultures, a training day was organised in Bastia Umbra, at the Minerva auditorium of S&R Farmaceutici spa, entitled ‘PartOriente’, with specialists from all over Italy interested in the Asian approach to patients to improve everyday medical practice. Maurizio Bini, head of the assisted reproductive technology department at the Niguarda Hospital, Milan, was the scientific director of the event and described, among other things, how “In Japan, still today most medical terms are of German origin and in China the enthusiasm for western medicine is so great that it crushes local traditions”. Bini also described how “80 percent of scientific publications accepted by the most prestigious journals now come from Asia. The western world has often imported treatment methods from other cultures, mostly relegating them to hyper-specialised enclaves of minor alternative medicine. This congress day has been organised to prevent such a danger”. Different topics were covered, from the infertile Asian couple with Dr. Cristoforo De Stefano, to ‘Unexplained infertility and Korean medicine’ with Drs. Patrizia Betti and Paola Costa, polycystic ovary syndrome (Pcos) and its ethnic and genetic differences explained by Dr. Stefania Piccolo. Bini explained that “Biologically, Asian and western women are different. For example, ovarian polycystosis is present in just over half the population of Asian women, compared to only 7 percent in Italy”. There are manifold differences between East and West, such as the popularity of c-sections. Bini explains that “Chinese women who live outside China have the lowest rate of c-sections in the world whereas 58% of those living in China undergo this procedure. Moreover, with the one-child policy no longer in place, now that many couples are deciding to have a second child, women who have previously undergone c-section are facing problems which are often unsuitably addressed. The postpartum period can also become a problem. The Chinese are reluctant to give blood because it depletes vital energy so it is scarce and a haemorrhage may prove fatal”.

Parthenogenesis was one of many topics covered during the course, with Giulia Cafueri, an embryologist at the infertility centre of the Niguarda Hospital, Milan. Dr. Cafueri explained how “For several years now highly sophisticated techniques have been developed in the field of assisted reproductive technology but there are complex problems which mean that patients are still unable to conceive, due to unexplained causes. Currently there are experimental techniques that are collectively referred to as oocyte activation and which use exogenous substances, like the injection of inositol in the oocytes, thus coadjuvating missing factors of sperm at the moment of fertilisation. The Japanese are very much ahead in this sense and in 2004 they created the first living parthenogenetic being, a ‘mouse with two mothers’, born from the fusion of two egg cells, therefore without any paternal contribution. It may appear that the paternal contribution is entirely unnecessary, however attempts to bring it to life were fraught with difficulties, proving it to be absolutely fundamental”.