NICE have released their list of priority topics for the year ahead. The topics are refreshed annually and may change during the year in response to major developments or new innovations in the life sciences, health and care.
The list of pertinent topics are as follows (and reasons why):
Early cancer detection/diagnosis
- Growing demand across cancer pathways and multiple cancer types.
- Emergence of novel diagnostics including digital and AI technologies that may support earlier detection of cancer.
- The budget implications for these technologies and downstream treatment pathways could be significant.
Diabetes
- Growing diabetes population with a high likelihood of undiagnosed groups.
- Digital health technologies becoming available for behavioural change in diabetes to support treatment and monitoring.
Women’s Health
- Women’s health conditions are known to be significantly underdiagnosed.
- This area has seen large investment and a recent growth in innovation to address some of the most pressing challenges.
Respiratory
- Significant growth in service demand for chronic respiratory conditions, coupled with well-documented health inequalities and workforce constraints, may lead to suboptimal outcomes.
- Technology is increasingly playing a part in delivering effective interventions to patients.
Neurology
- Several medicines for conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are being developed alongside diagnostic tools that would benefit from NICE assessment.
- Other neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and tics and Tourette’s have seen recent innovation which NICE has already assessed or is planning to assess.
The other topics prioritised but not listed above are mental health and musculoskeletal conditions.
