‘Googling’ aids difficult diagnoses

Doctors puzzling over a difficult diagnosis might do well to try “googling” their patients’ symptoms, according to research published by the British Medical Journal.

The researchers, from Australia, reached their conclusion after “googling for a diagnosis” using the Google search engine on 26 cases records published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005.

They arrived at the correct diagnosis in 15 cases – a success rate of 58% (95% confidence interval 38%-77%). During the online research they were “blind” to the correct diagnoses.

The research was prompted by an incident in which the researchers were treating a 16 year old with an acute subclavian vein thrombosis. As one of them explained that the cause of the thrombosis was uncertain, the patient’s father blurted out: “But he has Paget-von Schrötter syndrome.” He had reached the diagnosis by “googling.”

Discussing their results, the researchers acknowledge that the role of diagnostician remains one of the most challenging and fulfilling roles of a physician. “Physicians have been estimated to carry two million facts in their heads to fulfil this role. With medical knowledge expanding even this may not be enough.

“Search engines allow quick access to an ever increasing knowledge base. Google gives users ready access to more than three billion articles on the web and has far exceeded PubMed as the search engine of choice for retrieving medical articles.”

Google Scholar, currently in beta form, is likely to be even more useful as it searches only peer-reviewed articles, they say.

They conclude: “Our study suggests that in difficult diagnostic cases, it is often useful to ‘google for a diagnosis.’ Web based search engines such as Google are becoming the latest tools in clinical medicine and doctors in training need to become proficient in their use.”

Connecting for Health is also tapping into Google’s expertise. The agency confirmed to E-Health Insider that its director of clinical knowledge, process and safety, Sir Muir Gray, recently visited Google in the United States to have discussions about their searching techniques and our knowledge quality standards.

“He was also discussing this in the context of the World Health Organisation global health library,” a spokesperson added.