UAE: Adopt AI techniques to help improve clinical laboratory tests, medical experts recommend

Medical experts have proposed a set of recommendations that includes the need to adopt the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques in laboratories following the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which showed the great importance for these new technologies.

The doctors also highlighted the need to work on raising women’s awareness in the region through early screening of cervical cancer.

During the closing day of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry, Middle East Conference 2022 (AACC) at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Dubai on Sunday, the medics recommended enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of medical institutions and modifying their strategic objectives so they are able to keep pace with the latest administrative developments, advance the future of laboratory medicine and leadership contribution.

The experts also stressed the need to improve laboratory performance through self-examination and adopting sample anticipation techniques, especially when taking a sample from the patient until it reaches the laboratory official.

The conference also recommended expanding the types of tests for Alzheimer’s disease, which helps 90 per cent of doctors adopt appropriate treatment plans according to the tests.

Physicians also need to monitor the performance of devices used in laboratories by comparing the results of those samples, whether for one patient or for several patients and using tests called “Diabetes Inventory” in order to achieve high accuracy in the results and examination of diabetes detection.

The doctors stressed the importance of strengthening laboratory services, improving operational efficiency and quality, elevating standards and measures used in laboratories in the Middle East, and being keen on important updates in the field of laboratory medicine, including blood cancer, applications of tandem masses, and the diagnosis of autoimmune disorders.

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Dr Hosam Fouad, Founder and CEO of Life Diagnostics Laboratories in Abu Dhabi, stressed the need to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in various fields of laboratory analysis, especially in the areas of tumor diagnosis, which can give more accurate results in the quickest period possible.

“Clinical laboratories are an integral part of the health care system and play a critical role in disease management, and doctors heavily rely on them in the clinical decision,” he said.

Dr Joe Mohamed El-Khoury, Assistant Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Co-Director of the Clinical Chemistry Laboratory at Yale University, USA, said laboratories around the world need to adopt the use of Artificial Intelligence science and technologies in examining samples for accuracy and reducing the time spent on waiting results.

“It was important for laboratories in the Middle East to adopt the use of modern technologies as an alternative to sending samples to other countries for testing and examination through use of "mass spectrometry" techniques, which measure the quantities of samples in the blood, and other modern techniques,” he said.

• UAE