The Hindu, Sci tech
The Hindu Now possible: The cell phone is a portable digital computer in itself
and smart phones can be used in ophthalmology. Photo: S. Siva Saravanan
The use of digital computer devices in analysing and reporting our body
functions is becoming popular
Professor Eric Topol of Scripps Health, San Diego, CA has written the book "The
Creative Destruction of Medicines: How the Digital Revolution will Create
Better Healthcare". I chanced to read not the book (yet), but my colleague Dr
Sreedevi alerted me to his interview by Ms. Lucy Mckeon; it is exciting with
possibilities of the use of digitalisation in medical diagnosis and treatment.
The use of digital computer devices in analysing and reporting our body
functions is already becoming popular.
Indeed, there is an entire two-hour session devoted to the use of "smart
phones" in ophthalmology, in a forthcoming vision research meeting in Florida.
(Do not forget that the cell phone is a portable digital computer in itself).
Data storage is now done in devices smaller than the "bindi" that our ladies
wear on their foreheads; perhaps, her pulse rate, heart beat and such can be
monitored using the bindi.
Dr. Ramesh Raskar of MIT has already devised an "app" in a smart phone (
i-Phone in this case), which allows the user to check his/her eye "power". This
replaces the traditional eye chart, and allows the user to go directly to an
optician and obtain appropriate spectacles or contact lenses.
Contact lenses themselves are suitable surfaces on which tiny digital devices
can be embedded, with no hindrance to the vision of the user.
A group in Spain has put in a pressure-sensing device on the contact lens,
which measures fluctuation in the intraocular pressure, real time, thus
offering diagnosis for glaucoma.
The patient is not needed to come to meet the doctor in the morning and evening
just to register the pressure. Another group in Seattle has embedded an entire
integrated circuit system on the contact lens. This is powered by the battery
of a cell phone in the pocket of the user, with which it communicates via
Bluetooth). This device is thus able to access directions via the GPS facility
that the phone downloads via the internet. Imagine how useful this device would
be for a blind person.
The pocket ultrasound device is another revolutionary one. General Electric,
among others (even in China) is marketing this device, no bigger than a
Blackberry phone. Dr Topal says "I haven't used a stethoscope in two years. I
use this pocket ultrasound device so I can see everything in the heart rather
than listen to the heart's sound."
Dr Topal makes special mention of the use of the data obtained from the human
genome project.
It is now possible for a person to get the read-out of the entire of 3.2
billion units-long DNA sequence for $20,000, and soon it would be possible to
do so for $1000 (Rs. 50,000).
And this is but a one-time investment, which can come in handy (as my colleague
Dr Santosh Honavar remarked, get it done the moment the baby is born - a
genetic horoscope, as it were). And this entire personal genome sequence can be
stored in a smart card/cell phone memory.
Of what use will this personal/ individual specific human genome sequence data
be in medicine? With data already available, we can predict whether a given
medicine is safe or not, or suitable for you, based on your genotype.
Drugs like Metformin for diabetes, Plavix for blood clots, or Tegretol for
neurological disorders, are not acceptable for some people because of their
genetic background. Thus if we already know the latter, we can prescribe more
acceptable alternatives. Dr Topal further points out that there are a lot of
people with debilitating, serious illnesses, the causes for which are yet
unknown; neither the diagnosis nor the treatment.
With the knowledge of the whole genome sequence, he believes that we can
determine the root cause and the biologic bases of such "idiopathic" illnesses.
When Ms. Mckeon asked Dr Topol what technological innovation in medicine he is
must excited about, he said it is the embedded nanosensor.
This would be a nanoparticle-based device that can be injected into your blood
stream and made to localize in the wrist, finger or some such place from where
it can communicate with your cell phone.
" And that embedded nano-biosensor can be used to pick up, for example, the
first cancer cell that shows up in the bloodstream, which would promote the
earliest possible detection of cancer. It could also help with the autoimmune
form of diabetes, called Type I which usually affects kids....... (or) it can
be used to pick up cells in an artery that's starting to crack a week or two
before a heart attack (i.e. prevention). We have some really good data to
suggest that this will ultimately be possible".
Are there any Indian technologies and entrepreneurs working along these lines
in India? Yes, the Remidio group in Bangalore (www.remidio.com) has developed
hand-held high magnification retina viewer, and a digital fundus imaging device
that can look into the whole funds of the eye and help in detecting retinal
problems.
And another group led by Dagar (daga...@gmail.com) now has "brailled" the cell
phone to help the blind not just touch and read words and sentences but "see"
pictures. There must be more, and I would welcome to hear from/about them.
db...@lvpei.org
With thanks and regards
(Rajesh Asudani)
Assistant General Manager
Reserve Bank of India
Nagpur
Cell: 9420397185
o: +91 712 2806846
R: 2591349
(In youth you want things, and then in middle-age you want to want them.)
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