1. Low-cost and convenient screening of disease using analysis of physical measurements and recordings.
- Author
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Chandra J, Lin R, Kancherla D, Scott S, Sul D, Andrade D, Marzouk S, Iyer JM, Wasswa W, Villanueva C, and Celi LA
- Abstract
In recent years, there has been substantial work in low-cost medical diagnostics based on the physical manifestations of disease. This is due to advancements in data analysis techniques and classification algorithms and the increased availability of computing power through smart devices. Smartphones and their ability to interface with simple sensors such as inertial measurement units (IMUs), microphones, piezoelectric sensors, etc., or with convenient attachments such as lenses have revolutionized the ability collect medically relevant data easily. Even if the data has relatively low resolution or signal to noise ratio, newer algorithms have made it possible to identify disease with this data. Many low-cost diagnostic tools have been created in medical fields spanning from neurology to dermatology to obstetrics. These tools are particularly useful in low-resource areas where access to expensive diagnostic equipment may not be possible. The ultimate goal would be the creation of a "diagnostic toolkit" consisting of a smartphone and a set of sensors and attachments that can be used to screen for a wide set of diseases in a community healthcare setting. However, there are a few concerns that still need to be overcome in low-cost diagnostics: lack of incentives to bring these devices to market, algorithmic bias, "black box" nature of the algorithms, and data storage/transfer concerns., Competing Interests: Leo Anthony Celi is the Editor-in Chief of PLOS Digital Health. Leo Anthony Celi is also funded by the National Institute of Health through R01 EB017205, DS-I Africa U54 TW012043-01 and Bridge2AI OT2OD032701, and the National Science Foundation through ITEST #2148451., (Copyright: © 2024 Chandra et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)
- Published
- 2024
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