Disease screening APP

Disease screening APPs that have been formally registered with the State Food and Drug Administration can only be used as an auxiliary tool for initial screening of chronic disease risks and daily health management. They absolutely cannot replace offline professional testing and clinical diagnosis. This is the current consensus of the medical industry and regulatory authorities.

Last year, I helped my mother install an atrial fibrillation screening APP recommended by a cardiologist and registered as a Class II medical device. The smart bracelet she usually wears will automatically synchronize heart rate data to the background, and the algorithm will automatically identify irregular heart rhythms. If it were not for this APP. For three consecutive days, it reminded her that she had an abnormal atrial fibrillation waveform. She could not remember to go to the hospital for a 24-hour dynamic electrocardiogram. When the doctor finally diagnosed sporadic atrial fibrillation, the doctor said that thrombosis might occur in half a year. This was the first time I intuitively felt the usefulness of this thing.

But if you say that this thing can replace hospital examinations, that would be nonsense. Director Li from the gastroenterology department I know just received a 32-year-old patient last month who had bloody stools for almost two months. He thought it would be troublesome to do a colonoscopy, so he randomly found an unregistered intestinal disease screening APP to fill out a questionnaire and uploaded the results of his random test for occult blood in his stool. The APP judged him to be low risk, and he was relieved. He waited until he started to have abdominal pain and came back for a test. He was already in the middle stage of colorectal cancer. Now when Dr. Li is in the clinic, when he asks about the results of the APP, the first sentence is "Is this APP registered?"

The attitude towards this type of APP in the industry is actually quite polarized now. Friends who are engaged in Internet medical care always tell me that this thing can really fill the screening gap in the sinking market. Many elderly people in remote villages and towns cannot go to the county town once a year for diseases such as hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and cervical cancer. A preliminary screening questionnaire for common diseases + household sampling equipment combined with APP analysis can screen out many early risks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has previously conducted a pilot project in a county in the west. Using a compliant screening APP and village doctors to visit households, the early diagnosis rate of colorectal cancer increased by 17%. This data is real. However, the concerns of the clinical group are not unreasonable. Nearly 70% of the screening apps on the market have not obtained medical device registration, and the algorithms have not undergone large-scale clinical verification at all. Some even have risk thresholds set casually. Not to mention that ordinary people can’t tell the difference. Sometimes we in the industry can easily get into trouble if we don’t carefully check the registration information.

I have stepped into a trap before. I had a cough for half a month in the past two years. I browsed short videos and came across an APP that said "Blow your breath to test the risk of lung cancer." I spent 9 yuan to take the test. The result was that I was judged to be a medium risk, which scared me to go to the respiratory department overnight. Nothing happened after the CT scan, but when I checked later, I found that the APP didn’t even have a registration number. It was essentially a traffic diversion tool for sellers of air purifiers. From then on, whenever I downloaded such an APP, the first thing I did was to scroll to the bottom to find the registration information.

I have downloaded 10 screening apps on my mobile phone very quickly, and now only two are left. One is a risk assessment tool for family history of diabetes. Every time I measure my fingertip blood sugar at home, it will be synchronized. It will calculate the next 5 years based on my diet and exercise habits. To put it bluntly, it is a smart reminder tool that helps me keep my mouth shut and drink less milk tea; the other is a Tang screening risk auxiliary calculation tool that my sister used when she was pregnant. By inputting various indicators of prenatal check-ups, the reference risk value will be generated, saving her the trouble of blindly Baiduing over the report every time. There are actually no complicated rules when choosing. Don't believe those who can test systemic diseases by taking a photo of your hand or tongue. You can definitely find the registration number of the second-class medical device at the bottom of the homepage of a regular APP, and when you open it, a prompt will pop up saying "This product is only for preliminary risk screening and does not constitute clinical diagnosis advice." Anyone who dares to boast that their results can be used for diagnosis should delete it directly.

To put it bluntly, the disease screening APP is similar to the oximeter and thermometer at home. If you detect low blood oxygen or fever, you must go to the hospital to find out whether it is a cold or pneumonia. You will not prescribe medicine by yourself based on the results of the thermometer. It is essentially a tool that helps you reduce screening costs and improve health sensitivity. Don't deify it, and don't kill it all at once. If you use it correctly, it can save a lot of trouble. If you really use it as an "artifact" to replace doctors, the only one who will suffer is you.