​King Fahd Medical City (KFMC) launched the first workshop of the Saudi Flow Cytometry School, which was held at KFMC Main auditorium. This workshop was attended by a number of physicians, participants and speakers from a number of local hospitals, represented by the National Guard, King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, University Hospital, King Abdullah Medical City in Makkah and King Fahad Specialist Hospital in Dammam as well as KFMC participants and a number of attendees from the Gulf and Arab countries.

The Assistant Executive Director of Medical Affairs and the chairman of the organizing committee, Dr. Ismail, said that this workshop aims to assist physicians in diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. This workshop targets physicians and health practitioners of all specialties, either physicians who use the results of this technique in the treatment places, diagnosticians in pathology or scientists. He added, "Flow cytometry is a technique designated to diagnose blood disease and immunological blood diseases to assist in diagnosis, treatment and follow-up. It is also used to count and examine microscopic particles, such as cells and chromosomes by suspending these particles in a stream of fluid and passing them by an electronic detection apparatus. It allows a simultaneous multiparametic analysis of the physical and chemical characteristics of up to thousands of particles per second. It is used to diagnose diseases, especially leukemia. However, it has many other applications in both scientific research and clinical medical practice."

As for the most prominent points of the discussion, he said, "The principles and fundamentals of hematopoietic cells and how to determine and classify blood diseases as well as immunological diseases were discussed. The discussion was also about the diagnosis of blood diseases, how to use flow cytometry technique for diagnose, as well as the difficult cases in which the technique is used and how to overcome them. Another course of discussion was devoted to the individuals who worked in the conference on how the equipment is operated, maintained and performed, as well as the necessary and permanent quality works to achieve the desired results. The closing day discussion was about international latest developments in diagnosing blood diseases and how to write down and submit reports to physicians."