Google Used To Diagnose Disease 167
dptalia writes "About 20% of all diseases are misdiagnosed, a percentage that has remained steady since the 1930s. However, scientists have discovered that by inputting the key symptoms into Google they can get the correct diagnosis about 58% of the time. For rare and unusual diseases, this provides doctors the information they need to get a correct cure. Of course, Google is only as good as its knowledge base, and its users, so this isn't a cure for everything."
20% error compared to 42% error of Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The blurb isn't much to begin with - it is only 28 cases that were difficult to diagnose.
Even so, there isn't much information about the 28 cases. Were those 28 cases all misdiagnosed at one point, or were only 20% of them were issues? Also, how accurate are search engines on correctly diagnosed diseases?
The internet is useful in picking up diseases with a unique symptom, but is less effect
Re:20% error compared to 42% error of Google? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't get too excited about these numbers. The whole study is based on 26 examples.
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What are you talking about? Stantard deviation is going to be on the order of 1 over sqrt(n), which is approximately 20%.
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I'm all for having doctors with more information at their fingertips to help with their diagnosis, but that's just a silly comparison. Especially with so few cases.
Weighted Errors (Score:2)
Second, I would assume they always inputted the right symptoms and signs. But how
Conclusion (Score:2)
No... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's saying of the 20% that's mis-diagnosed, Google correctly identified 58% of those.
However, what no one has brought up is that when something is misdiagnosed, no one knows until they do the autopsy, so you can't just do simple math to lower the error rate to 8%. As you suggest, while google does better when the doctor is wrong, Google is worse than the doctor when he's correct. I'm not sure it's even correct to assume that if the doctor used Google the diagnoses would be better or worse, since there is an element of human judgment in medical practice.
What is does suggest is that doctors and patients should consider using Google to do a check on their patients and themselves for diagnosis and treatment options.
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SAMBA Essentials for Windows Administrators
RedHat 8 Linux Bible
Programming Python
And Heaven knows how much info I will Google today...
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Since we're using famous websites (Score:5, Insightful)
The contribution weight of better/senior/more respected doctors should be higher compared to new graduates. The wide open public should not be allowed to write, but should be allowed to read it.
This way better healthcare will be available in poor countries with Internet access, people will be able to double-check their diagnosis online and better doctors will be able to make a name for themselves the way CowboyNeal has.
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--
I see. The docs will get mod^h^h^hrespect points to give to their peers?
Or is it just the more senile they are the more respect they get?
Re:Since we're using famous websites (Score:5, Informative)
ASO, MD
Neurology
Re:Since we're using famous websites (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the most interesting cases in our group was a friend who had osteonecrosis in one of his knees. Some of the doctors he went to weren't keeping up with modern practice, and they recommended full knee replacements. He finally found a younger doctor who was up to date, and the surgery he had involved boring small holes into his knee, so that blood would enter those areas and rebuild the bone there.
The surgery was a complete success, my friend didn't need an artificial knee (at age 30!), and now he's perfectly healthy. The recovery time for the new surgery was much lower, and it was an all around good solution.
That's actually not been shown to work (Score:4, Informative)
-Francis C. MD
Dept. Musculoskeletal Oncology, Orthopaedic Surgery.
Re:Since we're using famous websites (Score:4, Insightful)
OLPD (Score:2)
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When you vandalize wikipedia, an elementary school kid gets something wrong on his paper. When you vandalize MediWiki, a doctor gives a patient 300cc's of anaesthetic too much--and ends up having a very stiff, very dead dude on his operating table.
I would prefer (Score:5, Insightful)
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Doctor, it hurts when I do this. (Score:2)
Doctor: Hang on. (types, waits, wrinkles his brow) Um, don't do that.
Thank you, Slashdot! (Score:1)
http://www.google.com/search?&q=Viagra+four+hour+
Good luck (Score:5, Funny)
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Gives you ideas (Score:4, Interesting)
I had a long term and quite painful medical problem to do with the eustation tube in my ear being blocked. The doctors, and even the ENT specialist didn't really have much of a clue. We tried steroids (that helped a little), pinching the nose and blowing, decongestants and all sorts.
What Google did for me was to keep going back to doctors with "would xxxx work?". It got me prompting them. Eventually, I tried out some massage, which someone had recommended on groups (that Google found) as a way to relieve the tension. And met a massage therapist who applied some Bowen Technique which solved the problem (the jaw alignment was out after dental work).
I wouldn't use Google alone, but sometimes, doctors don't think of everything. Some of their suggestions were little more than "switch it off and on again".
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Did Bowen work for me? Yes. Absolutely. Has it been scientifically tested? No (although there is some testing being done now).
Before doing my Bowen, I was struggling to concentrate. I would fall asleep at about 8pm, be grumpy with my family because of the discomfort. Afterwards, I functioned much better. Where my ear had not been secreting wax, it started doing so.
osteopathy works magic when indicated (Score:2)
yeah, because things that are 'unproven' don't work. right?
Osteopathy fixed my creaky TMJ (jaw joint) when nothing else did (not even Bowen). Osteopathic Manipulation's usefulness has been proven to the people who use it [osteohome.com] day-in and day-out, and to the patients who experience the 'magic'. In Spontane [amazon.com]
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You're destroying your credibility by intentionally misspelling "medical" and "doctor".
Re:Gives you ideas - got to compare it to PUBMED (Score:2, Interesting)
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Reading around, talking to doctors and the ENT, I got the impression that eustation problems are a bit of a nightmare. That the area around the jaw, eustation, ear etc. are very tight, and inaccessible so diagnosis is extremely difficult.
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What about... (Score:2)
It might not cure everything, but how does Google fare as a cure for the common cold?
misgivings... (Score:2, Insightful)
Latent Hypochondriacs will type in some general symptoms and find that they have the dreaded newest and hippest malady. I foresee needless worrying and driven-up-the-wall family members.
If Google Bombs are still extant, what's to stop a special interest group from planting links to "cures" for wildly improbable scenarios?
"Caveat, surf-or" is never out of style, I s'pose...
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I can see the wheels in the HMO financial officers' heads turning, turning, turning.
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Another great medical breakthrough! (Score:3, Funny)
Doctor Prognosis negative (Score:1)
isn't that against the point of a doctor having earned a medical degree.
Of course Google and any other search engine is an excellent tool for gathering valuable info. And its good as long the doc uses it for scientific facts and figures but its shady to be second -handing off other people's methods. The only way to get a Doctor that isn't prone to consider, for ex, chopping a 2 year old's tonsils out to prevent a tonsilitis that can never happen is to make sure t
I always knew I was right! (Score:1)
Most people I told that to thought I was joking.
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The article is full of hype (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, they took a very tiny sample, and then cherry-picked the good results from the bad ones. There's no mention of any serious statistical analysis (why pick 26 as a sample size? why pick 3 results instead of 4 or 5?). And there's no mention of any "control" experiment (e.g. guessing the answer, or perhaps looking it up in a medical textbook). This is a classic example of how to fit the facts to the desired conclusion.
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What's basically been said is "Google can be used for searching about stuff."
Actually.... (Score:2)
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Apostrophe abuse (Score:3, Informative)
As Dave Barry said, "An apostrophe doesn't mean - Yikes! Look out! Here comes an S".
Tip: It's means "it is".
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Thank's,
"The Management"
Don't trust things like this 100%... not even 58% (Score:3, Interesting)
Disagree - wrong use (Score:2)
Data knowledge, that's what doctors study all those years for.
Second error was not to talk to someone competent about your fears - worries grow if not confronted by reality. I could making jokes about tipping off customs the next time you fly on a plane (so you get it done for free on arrival), but cancer is a serious condition so I won't
It is a good idea to clue yourself about what you have, it's a bad idea to
Re:Don't trust things like this 100%... not even 5 (Score:1)
Score:3, Funny
You bunch of cruel ***t*rds.
Re:Don't trust things like this 100%... not even 5 (Score:2)
What you did was right, and maybe it caused you a little worry but it was for the best. Say you had those symptoms and thought (like most people tend to) it'll jkust go away, I'm sure its nothing. Say it had been cancer. By the time you found out it could well have been too late.
Even though you went through a bad patch, if it had been cancer it would have saved your life
So you should use it to maybe consult on, but never assume th
Re:Don't trust things like this 100%... not even 5 (Score:2)
Actually it's not recognized as a disease at all, as the people who have it can't agree on the symptoms. They claim to have fibres and sometimes small living creatures coming from lesions on their skin. Sometimes the living creatures are able to shape-shift into demons. I'm not making this up.
They constantly pick at their skin lesions to pull out the fibers, and then surprisingly,
And by throwing a coin 10 times (Score:1)
Only wrong 42% of the time but useless 100% (Score:2)
What the heck! (Score:1)
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Do you really think doctors spend all their time searching for diagnoses on google?
So basically you're saying... (Score:2)
58% of 20% (Score:1)
Umm... Google? (Score:2)
Diagnoses in China (Score:1)
Heh, imagine MSN Search =) (Score:1)
Damn, my friend is dying, and I need to know how to give him aid!
"Welcome to MSN Search...here's the way to help someone with this-or-that:[cure]"
DAMN; my friend died!
MSN-S: was this information useful to you?
hypochondria (Score:3, Funny)
This is a very, very important topic, by the way (Score:3, Insightful)
It is too often the case that our search for information about alleviating our ill health, diseases, disorders and pain is limited by the amount of money that we have to give to doctors and hospitals. It is too often that the doctors themselves are wrong when diagnosing the causes of our symptoms. It is too often that doctors fail to learn from the mistakes they make when attempting to diagnose ill health and diseases.
It is time for people to be given a mechanism to empower them in the search for good health, a mechanism that does not depend upon how much money they have with which to purchase the opinions of doctors, one which can be improved as it is used.
In virtually every area of human knowledge we recognize that software and databases are used to do jobs that no single person could possibly be able to do, be expected to do, to do these jobs better than, faster than, and at far less cost than any single person could do them. It's time to accept that this is also true of assisting us in understanding the meaning of the symptoms of our ill health, ill nutrition, pain and suffering.
There should be no objection by anyone to the idea that it is anyone's basic right to such knowledge, and that the Internet is the ideal method of providing this.
Re:This is a very, very important topic, by the wa (Score:2)
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There's a very old medical condition for which I (Score:2)
Well google saved my fiancee's life (Score:5, Interesting)
Did the doctor work out what was going on? No the arrogant son of a bitch didn't bother to give the fact that his patient had developed seizures a second thought. Fucker wanted her to stay on the medication. I had googled it, and after we pointed out to him that it was a contraindication and asked to have her come off it for a while, he said okay. Again I'm the one who looked up the fact that suddenly stopping would have made her suicidal.
Three things were re-enforced for me:
1) Yes Google is only as good as the researcher. Using Google to find a specialist site is probably one of the better ways to go. Thing is you have to learn some of the lingo and understand what you're seeing. Takes a bit of plugging away to do that.
2) The medical profession is full of arrogant tossers. The only less practical, more corrupt systems I know of are our legal and political systems. Some doctors are good despite the system. However the system encourages self serving educated idiots who take no interest in themselves (not to mention overworked perpetually tired doctors making life and death decisions). Most doctors don't take kindly to being second guessed, think they know best even when they haven't considered something properly, and think themselves above using technology to diagnose a patient. In the 21st Century the medical profession remains very 16th Century.
3) Get a good doctor and they make you better. Get a bad one and they'll take a minor problem you have and kill you with their incorrect treatment. It is entirely possible to know better than your doctor. In that case you still do need someone medically trained. Get a second or third opinion. Your life can depend on it.
She was deteriorating so quickly that I have no doubt whatsoever that had I not worked out what was wrong with my fiancee she'd have been dead within about 6 months from the time I did work it out (if not sooner). Having a search engine there to be able to research her condition was literally a life saver. Google happened to be king of the hill at the time.
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I have a similar story to share.
My dad recently told me that after WW2 (he was 12 then), he got some serious abdominal pains. My grandpa called the doctor on a Sunday, who told him to 'give him an aspirine and put him to bed'. My grandfather refused and insisted, even yelled, to get the man to come around. Turns out it my dad wouldn't have survived an extra night with an aspir
Internet (possibly) Saved My Life (Score:4, Interesting)
2 months after finishing college and starting a new job in a new area, I woke up one morning with an odd stomach pain. I didn't think anything of it, so I went to work. By lunch time, the pain did not relax at all. It didn't get worse... just a steady piercing pain. I told a co-worker I was taking a half day. By 5pm, I was starting to get really worried because this was not a normal feeling stomach pain, and it was still there.
I went to Google and typed in stomach pain, and that's when I was starting to really get worried. Several websites started directing me to Appendicitis. After reading more, I had all the Appendicitis symptoms except "nauseated". I called a friend, and he said, "Nah, man! It's probably just something you ate! You said you aren't feeling nauseated, right? I'd wait until you were nauseated."
I had crappy insurance. I didn't want to go to the hospital unless I needed to, but since everything I read online was pointing to Appendicitis, I eventually decided that peace of mind was worth an out-of-pocket exam, so I jumped in the car and drove myself to the ER.
I went to the front desk, and he asked, "What do you think is wrong?"
I said, "I think I have Appendicitis."
"All right, fill this out and sit over there."
When I got to finally see a nurse, I said, "I think I have Appendicitis."
"Does this hurt?" "Yes."
When I got to finally a doctor, I said, "I think I have Appendicitis."
"We'll run some tests."
They ran a blood test. Came back positive.
They ran some x-ray type test. Came back positive.
By 10pm, the doctor came and said, "You have Appendicitis." By 5am, they were operating on me.
After one flaming bag of pus removed, and ~$5,000 worth of medical debt, I spent the next week on disability leave playing Final Fantasy X in my apartment. Good game, btw.
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After a few pints, I was up all that night with terrible pain. Hit the student health center when they opened at 5:30 or 6:00.
Apparently, Purdue U docs don't have high tech xray type stuff. I got the rubber glove. Didn't care, the pain was terrible.
Doc decided I had appendicitis, sent me to a surgeon. I had to have my buddy drive me.
We get there, and while being admitted buddy says, "Good lu
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The moral of this story is that Google helped you save your own life, by convincing you that you needed to be checked out. In a very short time I've seen several cases like yours in our county hospital, of uninsured young adults with appendicitis. But unlike you they put off seeing a doctor for days, even weeks, out of
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Like Dilbert's Scott Adams (Score:2)
Let the Googleboming begin... (Score:2)
It's true (Score:3, Funny)
This just in! (Score:2)
self diagnosis = fun! (Score:4, Funny)
the search engine told me that at best i had herpes but more likely leprosy.
my doctor finally returned my call, had me come over, and told me it was chickenpox...
can you imagine what a hypochondriac's google search logs might looks like?
Could be a step in the right direction (Score:2, Insightful)
Hopefully the next generation of doctors will be so use to using internet search engines, that they won't feel threatened by a tool designed to help them
The correct saying is (Score:2)
So as a result of that saying, odd and very rare diseases are often referred to as "Zebras"
Going from 80% correct to 58% correct is progress? (Score:2)
expert system (Score:2)
I am a doctor and I use Google (Score:4, Interesting)
But for diagnosis, no. Here are the limitations of this study as I see them. The New England Journal cases are weird, uncommon diseases. They often feature a constellation of uncommon symptoms, such as the example used in the article - IPEX (immunodeficiency, polyendocrinopathy, enteropathy, X linked). If you search for just immunodeficiency and polyendocrinopathy, you will get the answer. This is because those are rare symptoms and their combination is even rarer. You would get the same result on any of the well-traveled medical professional sites. If you had a patient with more common symptoms such as with fatigue, weight loss, and night sweats, the prospects of a successful search are low. Another problem with the study is that diagnosis requires a determination of which symptoms are important. If you search for "immunodeficiency polyendocrinopathy hangnail" you don't get IPEX. The researchers in the study got to choose which features of the disease to include and made sure to search for them in medical language. If they had searched for "immunodeficiency low thyroid" they would get an article about greyhounds. It's the same symptom, but not searched medically (polyendocrinopathy). A final issue is that one of the reason these cases are so hard (they all come from Massachusetts General Hospital, where I've cared for a few of them) is that they take awhile to unfold. Usually by the time they are written up nicely, they are far easier than when only one or two symptoms have developed or when the bloodwork is only half finished. When a case appears in the New England Journal, you start thinking rare things immediately. When it appears in your clinic, you should think of common things first.
Anyway, I definitely think that google (or more likely other diagnostic algorithms) has a role in the future of diagnosis. I don't think that it is anywhere near that point yet. I think the study actually supports that (58% is pretty poor!)
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Not a good use for Google (Score:2)
b) This is not, in general, a great application of search technology. Simple AI is what's needed here. Doctors used to do an extremely poor job of identifying which person in the ER with chest pains was actually having a heart attack. A doctor made a database of cases and symptoms, and then made a simple flowchart that could do a better job of identifying heart at
Peace of mind (Score:2)
Your MMV but a good doctor would say "sure but see this one and this one... these are very unlikely based on my experience and e
As a medical student..., (Score:2)
However, sites like WebMD are horrible for pa
Dr. Nick Riviera's Solution to Medicine (Score:2)
Doctors use Google a lot (Score:2)
We conducted user research as part of the design of this system, and one of the things we found was that younger clinicians (doctors, consultants and students) use Google.
Not Sure About This (Score:2)
Hey, I remember this. (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, Google is our friend and now cures diseas (Score:1)
Re:Wow!!! 8 percent better than a coin flip!!! OMG (Score:2)