Arab Health Congress to Explore 3-D Printing Applications

The 2016 Arab Health Congress (Dubai; UAE), the largest event of its kind in the Middle East, will focus on three dimensional (3-D) printing.

The 41st congress, which will take place during January 25–28, 2016, will cover various topics in multiple conferences, including radiology, pediatrics, physical medicine and rehabilitation, big data, cardiovascular disease and Intervention, diabetes, gastroenterology, hypertension, orthopedics, public health, quality management, rheumatology, surgery, medical laboratory, wound care, and more. The congress will be attended by more than 13,000 delegates from around the globe, with international speakers covering a broad spectrum of medical specialties and disciplines.

The center stage of the conference will cover several cutting-edge topics within the field of 3-D bioprinting and how it will revolutionize healthcare, such as smart bioinks, 3-D printing for planning surgical procedures, using the technology for disease discovers and models, challenges in printing in vitro 3-D cancer models, 3-D printing of blood vessels, 3-D printing of vascular channels for thick tissue regeneration, and more topics, including the legal and ethical debates surrounding the technology once the next step in the field, 3-D bioprinting of complete organs such as the pancreas, kidney, and is achieved.

Doctors can now utilize 3-D printers to create temporary tools that provide a precise outline of the patient’s organ or bone structure. This allows them to more precisely fit implants, or perform procedures and administer treatment. Using medical imaging and 3-D-modeling technology, and custom-printed drilling guides for instance can ensure that screws, needles, or medication are placed precisely to ensure that the treatment is located correctly within a patient's body.

“The conference will focus on a new technology called ‘body-on-a-chip’, which has the ability to print mini hearts, livers and blood vessels on a chip. This could potentially provide to more accurate testing for new drugs and eradicate the need for animal testing,” said Simon Page, managing director of Informa Life Sciences Exhibitions (Dubai, UAE; www.informalifesciences.com), organizers of the 2015 Arab Health Congress.

The members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) spend around USD 18 billion on health care annually, most of which is government funded. Health care systems in country members of the GCC region also face increasing health care demand and expenditures, triggered mainly by a growing and aging population.

Related Links:
2016 Arab Health Congress
Informa Life Sciences Exhibitions
Gulf Cooperation Council