Google Used To Diagnose Disease

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."

Comments

20% error compared to 42% error of Google?

[epsalon]

What the blurb doesn't say, how much of the 58% google gets right overlaps with the 20% doctors get wrong, if at all.

Re:20% error compared to 42% error of Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the blurb doesn't say, how much of the 58% google gets right overlaps with the 20% doctors get wrong, if at all.

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 effective if the disease's most prominant symptom matches with anthoer common disease. As an example, Vomiting and Diarrhea may seem like something simple that can be waited out for a days. However, I turned out to have something a bit more serious - IIRC, it was Gastroenteritis, but it was a long time since I had it.

I'd post using my nick, but this is a bit into my medical history.

Since we're using famous websites

[mnmn]

There should be a global wiki for medical professionals searchable by symptoms.

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.

Re:Since we're using famous websites

[InternationalCow]

A mistake that patients and other laypeople commonly make is to think that their search is just as good as the doctor's. It isn't. An untrained individual (patient, curious person, whoever) using Internet resources to gather information about their real or perceived diagnosis usually ends up barking up the wrong tree. I see it all the time in my patients. I warn them about it and still they make this mistake. I deal with rare diseases, the 20% that are usually diagnosed wrong. Trust me, Google by itself or any other internet resource doesn't do you any good if you don't know EXACTLY what the key symptoms are. And selecting those is not something an amateur can do. So you can go on and tell me about how you corrected your doctor and beat the medical establishment and crap like that, but at least for the kind of disorder discussed here (IPEX and family) you as an amateur would not arrive at that diagnosis. And oh, Google is not the best resource for medical type searches. Try Pubmed, or OMIM, or if you're really serious (IPEX is an X-linked disorder caused by FOXP3 mutations) use the London Dysmorphology Database (LDDB). Amateurs should NOT, I repeat NOT, try to diagnose their own diseases. They simply lack the background to judge their own symptoms.

I would prefer

[Timesprout]

If there was a publically available performance/competency grade for doctors online so I could just google for a good doctor in my area rather than hoping some med student hits paydirt with an 'I feel lucky search'

No...

[tkrotchko]

The write-up is a bit funny and misleading.

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.