Invent the Medical Tricorder, Win $10,000,000 167
GeneralSecretary writes "If you've ever watched Star Trek and said, 'Hey, I could build that,' now's your chance. Qualcomm and the X PRIZE Foundation have teamed together to offer ten million US dollars to whomever can invent 'a mobile solution that can diagnose patients better than or equal to a panel of board certified physicians.' They call it the Tricorder X PRIZE. Hopefully the Tricorder will join the cell phone, MRI, and tablet computer in the list of Star Trek devices that are now part of our lives."
better than a group of doctors?!?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't we start out with just one doctor?
perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Star Trek had radio telephones, not "cell phones" - they've been around since before WW2: dumb tool leaving the thinking to humans;
2. The Styalator tablet input device was produced in 1957: dumb tool leaving the thinking to humans;
3. The MRI was fairly recent, but PET (and Star Trek didn't distinguish) applied to medical imaging was discussed by Sweet and Brownell in 1953: dumb tool leaving the thinking to humans;
4. The tricorder could be considered a combination of imaging, sensors and an expert system: attempt to replace human judgement with AI.
Unsurprisingly, one of these things is glaringly missing from everyday modern life.
Re:Difficult (Score:5, Interesting)
At a previous company we worked on hand held ultrasound before GE (and the thing in their commercials looks suspiciously like a prototype/patents we had so I may send off some emails to see what's up with that). Went away from that design since it was a bit bulky and inconvenient since there were a lot of electronics added to the transducer. Instead a portable hand carry device instead that has enough room to get top of the line image quality, but it can also be docked to a full size cart. People really want the hand held stuff for emergency rooms or disasters but not for day to day use. I think the biggest selling points were image quality and low cost and the portability was a "just in case we need it" afterthought.
But then this is just ultrasound. That doesn't give you a full range of stuff you need to know. It isn't good at detecting cracked bones, it won't handle cranial problems, some types of tissues it won't distinguish very well, it requires good training to use it well, etc. You'll need more than one type of modality. You can shrink down ultrasound but you won't have such luck with MRI. Then when you're done you still need to be good at diagnostics and you're going to need a human for that; ie is that lump part of a spleen or is it a tumor, is that a lesion or a shadow, is the liver missing or am I just holding it wrong? Computer imaging just isn't that good yet, and when the imaging does get that good then you need the AI part to determine what the image means.
The "everything all in one device" is pure fiction. You're going to need multiple devices to gather the data, and then you upload it all to a big computer to analyze. The problem is that all this stuff exists in a hospital but what you need these smaller devices for is for when you're not at a hospital and you may not even have network connectivity.
Re:better than a group of doctors?!?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Could you not do the same for medical diagnosis?
[Do you have a headache?]
"No."
[Does your stomach hurt?]
"Yes."
[You have an ulcer?]
"No."
[What's wrong, and what would have been a better question?]
"Food poisoning, and 'Did you eat uncooked meat recently?'"
[Noted. Now I am smarter.]
It seems that you could make a diagnosis engine that as you rule things out it could come to as good a conclusion as a typical doctor.
Re:Done (Score:5, Interesting)
Just for fun, I tried out that tool. I plugged in the symptoms I had when I cracked a rib. When I went to the doctor, the nurse diagnosed me before I even got to the exam room based just on watching me walk and hearing where the pain was. The software didn't even begin to ask the right questions, and assigned a 94% probability of something completely unrelated.
I also tried plugging in the symptoms I had a number of years back before I realized I had asthma. It's diagnosis was for several possibilities, none better than 24%.
However, a trained doctor, hearing me cough just once immediately recognized it as an asthma specific cough pattern.
So no, I wouldn't trust that tool over common sense, not even close.