Smartphone applications have entirely changed the mobile industry. We first used our mobile handsets to place and receive telephone calls, unencumbered by a land line. This no doubt resulted in many situations over the years where lives have been saved because the proper authorities and health providers were contacted immediately, where in the past this would not have been the case. Then our mobile handsets were given the ability to access the internet, and we were all checking our e-mail and reading news stories anytime and anyplace we desired.
But the biggest change in recent years has been the growth of smartphone applications. Designers and developers have created apps for literally any and every situation or need. And recently, information from a 2012 study has been released which shows that the average smartphone user is more inclined than ever to use an application on their handset to diagnose their health. The Pew Research Center recently released their Internet and American Life Project results, which showed that more than 1 in 5 smartphone users in the US have downloaded at least one mobile health application.
While on the surface this may appear an excellent move towards healthy lifestyle changes, what happens when the application is wrong? There are apps available for your Android and iOS smartphones which purport the ability to diagnose melanoma and other skin cancers. You take a picture of a growth or lesion on your skin with your smartphone camera, send it through the melanoma detecting application, and you receive feedback on the likelihood that you have melanoma or some other skin cancer. This is an amazing and immediate way to get information and a possible diagnosis, but a recent test of four such applications provided a wide range of variables results.
A study published in the JAMA Dermatology by Wolf and colleagues measured the performance of four smartphone apps as far as their ability to detect melanoma and other skin cancers. Three apps deliver an instant info diagnosis of a photograph that you take, with the fourth app actually delivering the picture to a dermatologist who then gives his diagnosis. Wolf’s test group sent photographs of 188 moles to all four applications, 60 of which were known to carry melanoma.
The four applications incorrectly diagnosed more than 30% of the melanoma carrying moles as “un-concerning.” We are certainly not espousing a total departure from using helpful and handy smartphone applications. But when your life is at stake, as melanoma can be deadly if not detected early, back up your mobile health app diagnosis with a trip to your doctor. Smartphone applications can certainly be timesavers, fun departures from the workaday world, and even help you to live a healthier life. But you have to be around to enjoy these wonderful applications, so head to a doctor and can confirm or deny your mobile diagnosis.
