Prime Highlights:
- A new MRI tool developed through a collaboration between NYU Abu Dhabi, Yas Clinic, and ADSCC allows faster and more confident diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.
- The FLAIRstar tool identifies the central vein sign, helping doctors reduce uncertainty and speed up treatment for patients.
Key Facts:
- FLAIRstar is currently being tested at Yas Clinic as part of the LAMINATE project, ensuring patient data remains secure within the UAE.
- The collaboration also supports clinical trials, helping track brain changes to evaluate new MS treatments, including Extracorporeal Photopheresis (ECP).
Key Background:
A collaboration between New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), Yas Clinic, Khalifa City, and the Abu Dhabi Stem Cells Center (ADSCC) is improving care for multiple sclerosis (MS) with a new MRI method that allows faster and more accurate diagnoses.
The partnership brings advanced research from NYUAD’s Center for Brain and Health into real-world patient care. It helps doctors tell MS apart from other neurological conditions that can look similar on scans. Diagnosing MS is challenging because brain lesions on regular MRI scans can look like those from migraines, blood vessel problems, or other conditions. This makes patients wait longer, undergo repeated scans, and sometimes have invasive tests, which can delay treatment.
Over the past two years, the collaboration has focused on testing and validating advanced MRI methods in clinical settings. A standout development is FLAIRstar, a computational module created at NYUAD. The tool identifies the “central vein sign” (CVS), a small vein at the center of brain lesions that is an important marker for MS. By spotting the CVS accurately, FLAIRstar helps doctors confirm MS more confidently, reducing uncertainty and allowing patients to start treatment sooner.
FLAIRstar is currently being tested at Yas Clinic as part of the LAMINATE project, which uses advanced imaging methods in patient care while keeping all data securely in the UAE. The collaboration also extends to Yas Clinic’s PHOMS clinical trial, where NYUAD’s MRI analysis tracks brain changes to assess emerging MS treatments, including Extracorporeal Photopheresis (ECP).
Dr. Lev Brylev, Consultant Neurologist at Yas Clinic, said: “Our work combines clinical expertise with advanced MRI methods to bring transformative solutions for MS care. Tools like FLAIRstar and LAMINATE are already improving diagnosis, accelerating treatment, and enhancing patient outcomes.”
Prof. Osama Abdullah, MRI Physicist at NYUAD, added: “This is a clear example of translating research into real-world healthcare. Working with Yas Clinic and ADSCC lets us test our discoveries and use them in real patient care, building a strong environment for medical innovation in Abu Dhabi.
This partnership shows the UAE’s growing role in medical research, where new ideas and clinical expertise come together to treat complex neurological conditions and improve patient care.
