At a forum on medical technology in healthcare held on October 29, Dr Nguyen Thi Trang, Senior Lecturer of Hanoi Medical University, and Deputy General Secretary of the Vietnam Medical Genetics Association introduced the AI application in screening and diagnosing gene-related diseases such as Thalassamia, Down syndrome, and five common cancers in Vietnam. 

According to Trang, Vietnam’s healthcare system has made big changes in recent years, but investments in the sector remain very modest. A report showed that in 2018, Vietnam had eight physicians per 10,000 people, the lowest rate in Southeast Asia. With the current training pace, Vietnam will need 75 years to catch up with Singapore, where there are 23 physicians per 10,000 people.

She noted that in Vietnam, the difference in qualifications between local hospitals and central hospitals is still wide; therefore utilizing data and AI to build a smart healthcare system is considered a national strategy in healthcare development.

The digital technologies analyzing data help diagnose diseases early, at reasonable cost, and can approach users in a large scale.

Also according to Trang, when communicable diseases are on the decrease, genetically related diseases are on the rise, leaving serious after-effects not only on patients but also on the next generation. 

Clinical specialties such as cardiology, oncology, obstetrics, andrology, urology, psychiatry, pediatrics have a close relationship with genetics.

With the development of big data, learning machine and AI apps have been put into use in the healthcare sector in many developed countries, such as AI in personalized healthcare. Computational tools and machine learning statistics can be used to develop personalized treatment based on patients’ phenomena and genetic information.

Machine learning methods are used to detect and classify tumors. Deep learning plays an important role in discovering cancers as it can access the existing data. Research has proved that deep learning can mitigate the error rate in breast cancer diagnosing.

In addition, the application can also help diagnose cardiovascular diseases, discover diabetes in the early stages, and predict liver disease progression.

The experts at the Hanoi Medical University have decided to develop AI-based software  to conduct prenatal screening to discover congenital abnormalities commonly seen in Vietnam -- for example, screening people with Thalassemia gene; and to build a machine learning model to measure NT (Nuchal Translucency).

Linh Trang