Doctors using Google to diagnose illness

[staticnrg]

Doctors using Google to diagnose illness....

 

The internet search engine Google has added another impressive string to its bow - by helping doctors diagnose illnesses, according to a new study.

 

Researchers found that almost six-in-10 difficult cases can be solved by using the world wide web as a diagnostic aid.

 

Doctors fight disease by carrying about two million facts in their heads but with medical knowledge expanding rapidly, even this may not be enough.

 

Misdiagnosis is still a common occurrence in the medical profession despite all the tools available such as the blood tests and state of the art scanning equipment.

 

Studies of autopsies have shown doctors seriously misdiagnose fatal illnesses about 20 per cent of the time.

 

So millions of patients are being treated for the wrong disease. And the more astonishing fact may be that the rate has not really changed since the 1930s.

 

So a team at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane identified 26 difficult diagnostic cases published in the New England Journal of Medicine last year, including obscure conditions such as Cushing's syndrome and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

 

They selected three to five search terms from each case and did a Google search while blind to the correct diagnoses. Google gives users quick access to more than three billion medical articles.

 

The researchers then selected and recorded the three diagnoses that were ranked most prominently and appeared to fit the symptoms and signs, and compared the results with the correct diagnoses as published in the journal.

 

Google searches found the correct diagnosis in 15 (58 per cent) of cases. Respiratory and sleep physician Dr Hangwi Tang, who led the study, said: "Doctors adept at using the internet use Google to help them diagnose difficult cases.

 

"As described in the New England Journal of Medicine, a doctor astonished her colleagues including an eminent professor by correctly diagnosing IPEX (immunodeficiency, polyendocrinopathy, enteropathy, X linked) syndrome.

 

She admitted that the diagnosis 'popped right out' after she entered the salient features into Google."

 

The researchers, whose findings are published online by the British Medical Journal, suggest Google is likely to be a useful aid for conditions with unique symptoms and signs that can easily be used as search terms.

 

But they stress the efficiency of the search and the usefulness of the retrieved information depend on the searchers' knowledge base.

 

Dr Tang added: "Doctors and patients are increasing proficient with the internet and frequently use Google to search for medical information.

 

"Twenty five million people in the United Kingdom were estimated to have web access in 2001, and searching for health information was one of the most common uses of the web.

 

"Computers connected to the internet are now ubiquitous in outpatient clinics and hospital wards. Useful information on even the rarest medical syndromes can now be found and digested within a matter of minutes.

 

"Our study suggests that in difficult diagnostic cases, it is often useful to 'google for a diagnosis'. Web based search engines such as Google are becoming the latest tools in clinical medicine, and doctors in training need to become proficient in their use."

 

Well, well, well............

 

Hugs!!

Robin

[~MaryO~]

Apparently several papers put their own spin on this story. I had collected these 2 versions for the next email newsletters:

 

http://www.emaxhealth.com/24/8215.html

 

Google Helping Doctors Diagnose Difficult Cases

Google For A Diagnosis

 

Searching with Google may help doctors to diagnose difficult cases, finds a study from Australia published on bmj.com today.

 

Doctors have been estimated to carry two million facts in their heads to help them diagnose illness, but with medical knowledge expanding rapidly, even this may not be enough. Google is the most popular search engine on the world wide web, giving users quick access to more than three billion medical articles.

 

So, how good is Google in helping doctors diagnose difficult cases?

 

Doctors at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane identified 26 difficult diagnostic cases published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005. They included conditions such as Cushing's syndrome and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

 

They selected three to five search terms from each case and did a Google search while blind to the correct diagnoses.

 

They then selected and recorded the three diagnoses that were ranked most prominently and seemed to fit the symptoms and signs, and compared the results with the correct diagnoses as published in the journal.

 

Google searches found the correct diagnosis in 15 (58%) of cases.

 

The authors suggest that Google is likely to be a useful aid for conditions with unique symptoms and signs that can easily be used as search terms.

 

However, they stress that the efficiency of the search and the usefulness of the retrieved information depend on the searchers' knowledge base.

 

Doctors and patients are increasingly using the internet to search for health related information, and useful information on even the rarest medical syndromes can now be found and digested within a matter of minutes, say the authors.

 

"Our study suggests that in difficult diagnostic cases, it is often useful to google for a diagnosis."

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200611/s1785466.htm

 

Doctors use Google to diagnose disease: study

By Anna Salleh, ABC Science Online

 

It is not just patients who are frantically plugging their symptoms into Google to see what disease they might have, Australian researchers say doctors are doing it too.

 

Dr Hangwi Tang and Dr Jennifer Ng of the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane have reported their findings online in the British Medical Journal.

 

Dr Tang says the study was driven by personal curiosity after noticing how patients and doctors alike were using Google to diagnose difficult cases.

 

In one example he had a patient whose father used the search engine to correctly diagnose that his son had the rare circulatory condition -Paget-von Schr?tter syndrome.

 

Dr Tang and Dr Ng selected 26 difficult cases presented in the New England Journal of Medicine, including Cushing's syndrome, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, encephalitis and cirrhosis.

 

They then plugged the symptoms of each case into the search engine to come up with a diagnosis.

 

When these diagnoses were compared with the correct published diagnoses, the researchers found that Google got it right 58 per cent of the time.

 

They say an online search is likely to be more effective at helping to diagnose conditions with unique symptoms that can be used as search terms.

 

Dr Tang says part of the challenge in using Google is to be able to efficiently sift through the many pages of links that you get from an online search.

 

He thinks that doctors are better placed than patients at doing this because they are better at selecting relevant links.

 

"I don't think Google can replace doctors, in other words," said Dr Tang.

Millions of facts

 

Doctors have been estimated to carry 2 million facts in their heads to help them to diagnose disease, the researchers say.

 

But search engines allow them to get quick access to an ever increasing medical knowledge base that might be impossible to hold in their head.

 

Google in particular gives access to more than 3 billion articles, they say, with Google Scholar restricting searches to peer reviewed articles.

 

Dr Tang says while there are a number of other search engines that clinicians can use, they often prefer Google because it is so easy to use and freely available.

Other studies

 

Professor Johanna Westbrook of the Centre for Health Informatics in Sydney says the findings are consistent with her own.

 

Her team looked at how specialised search engines could help clinicians to both diagnose and treat patients, using the best available evidence.

 

The study found clinicians were 21 per cent more likely to give the correct answers when they used online search engines.

 

Interestingly though, a few clinicians got the wrong answers using the search engines, although they got the right answers without them.

 

Professor Westbrook says this underscores the importance of learning how to interpret complex evidence.

 

Another interesting finding was that clinical nurse consultants using the search engines were just as accurate as doctors.

 

Professor Westbrook says this suggests search engines might help such nurses to diagnose and treat patients in rural areas where there are fewer doctors.

 

"[An online search engine is] available 24 hours a day," she said.

 

"Whereas you can't get a clinician 24 hours a day. You can't get to a hospital library 24 hours a day."

 

Professor Westbrook says that while Google might be good for helping find information about diseases with unique symptoms, more sophisticated search engines would be required for more complex diseases.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Thanks, Robin!

[Fairley]

See, now I just wish my local country doctors would have googled my symptoms years ago....would have saved me the loss of nearly all of my 30's to Cushing's.....(sigh)

 

Thanks, ladies, for sharing these articles!

 

Robin, you are like the article QUEEN!

[justashell]

DR. Robin, et al.---

 

Well, well, well...let's see---doctors are looking to sources outside themselves to diagnose "rare" diseases?

 

Wow. Did they have a medical convention in some tropical paradise to learn this "new and complicated" technique? Or did they go home and find their kids googling for information about some weird disease like porphyria, so they could shock and impress their 7th grade English teacher?

 

The internet is an incredible tool for all of us to use. If someone gives me grief about using the internet, I remind them that I can read---I may not know all the chemistry and molecular biology and other stuff that doctors have to know, but I can read and comprehend medical abstracts.

[da89165]

Wow, that's encouraging!!! You know it's just not realistic to think ANY doctor can keep up with all the information that's coming out. I work in the training profession and I CAN"T keep up with all the new research in the training "rags" for my own profession.

 

I think the biggest difference with how docs are being taught now, vs 20-30 yrs ago, is that technology is a part of your everyday life, and that it's not only OK, but good to continually research as a life-long learner. Anyone who thinks they already know it all, is prideful and foolish.

 

It's a change that's SLOWLY happening with school teachers as well. To begin thinking that they are not the "expert" on subjects but the "facilitator" to help students learn as much as they can.

 

Koodoos for Google!!! They are the ones who led me to this board. Something I learned a few years ago about Google is that unlike most search engines, who have you "pay" to put your site at the top of the page.....Google shows you what "the people" are using most frequently for subjects vs. organizations buying their way onto the list. Genius idea......and much more trustworthy and helpful.

 

Gina

[justashell]

Corporations are adopting a different paradigm---instead of having a management style that works from the top down, they are structuring things so that everyone contributes.

 

My husband works for a university and he is active in a program they call "Shared Leadership".

 

Maybe in my quest for a new pcp, I should be looking for someone younger, who is open to new ideas and willing to listen to the patient.