Health experts have begun work to modify the stethoscope a device used for diagnosing heart, chest, and lung diseases for the first time in 200 years, by integrating it with artificial intelligence (AI).
According to a medical website, experts are working to enhance the stethoscope using AI, and preliminary research and results show that with the help of AI, the stethoscope can identify different disease related sounds more accurately than humans.
Researchers stated that with the integration of AI, doctors could hear sounds through the stethoscope that might not be audible to the human ear. This enhancement could allow for earlier disease detection.
Generally, doctors use the stethoscope to listen to heart sounds, and any abnormal sound indicates that something might be wrong.
However, experts noted that in many diseases, the changes in sounds are so subtle that they cannot be detected by the human ear, which is why there is a need to improve the stethoscope.
Researchers said that if the sounds captured by the stethoscope are converted into digital signals and analyzed using AI, even the slightest variations can be detected.
In this regard, the preliminary findings from studies to improve the stethoscope through AI show that the new AI-assisted stethoscope can identify normal sounds with more than 95% accuracy and differentiate between various heart diseases with about 85% accuracy.
The research also revealed that AI can detect changes that occur even before murmurs or other noticeable sounds appear, meaning diseases could be diagnosed much earlier.
Although the stethoscope has not yet been connected to AI, initial research is ongoing, and after completion, it is expected that the device will be transformed with AI integration marking its first major change in nearly 200 years.
