Experts predict advances in artificial intelligence (AI)—the ability of a machine to mimic human cognition—will spark the fourth industrial revolution, but the dawn of a new age in diagnostic medicine may already be on the horizon. Google and others are leveraging deep learning, a subset of AI that aims to imitate the neuronal processing of the human brain, to screen for diseases—such as diabetic retinopathy, cardiovascular disease, brain tumours, skin cancers, and stroke—at unprecedented levels of sensitivity and specificity. Limitations include an inability to wholly substitute for human empathy and touch, a vulnerability for adversarial training, and concerns about interpretability. If hurdles can be properly dealt with, the coalescence of big data and AI research will change how medicine is provided, practiced, and accessed.
The management of chronic pain remains a challenging area in the practise of medicine. As our population ages, the incidence and prevalence of those living with chronic pain continues to increase. Hence, there is need for methods that promote optimal pain management. One promising avenue is that of “personalized and molecular pain management”. Indeed, a variety of genetic and molecular factors have been shown to impact metabolism of narcotics, limiting drug effectiveness. Furthermore, the prominence of polypharmacy can complicate the action of pain medications. Additional laboratory and diagnostic tests may be of benefit for risk stratifying patients at high risk of abusing pain medications from those at lower risk. Combining this with physician worry of worsening the opioid addiction crisis in North America via prescribing narcotics, there remains great pressure on physicians to limit their use of narcotics. Unfortunately, this may result in patients who are suitable candidates for prescription opioids receiving inadequate pharmaceutical treatment to complement non-pharmacological interventions. Moving forward, the implementation of molecular medicine approaches to pain management may provide unique solutions to these challenges.
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