Yes, that's right, an MP3 player. And no, it won't be for bopping to tunes. A team of researchers from the University of Alberta is exploring whether the popular music players could be the stethoscope of the future, a replacement for an instrument recognized as not the most effective of tools in the medical toolbox.
Dr. Neil Skjodt, a respirologist, and Bill Hodgetts, an audiologist, have been testing MP3 players with built-in microphones to determine whether they might produce clearer, more recognizable lung sounds.
"The quality, clarity and purity of the loud sounds were better than I have ever heard with a stethoscope," Skjodt said in a release.
Skjodt was scheduled to present preliminary findings of the work Monday at the annual Congress of the European Respiratory Society in Stockholm.
Discerning chest or heart sounds through a stethoscope is more of an art than a science. Recent studies have shown that some medical students have to listen to certain clinical sounds up to 500 times in order to be able to recognize one from the other.
Skjodt tested respiratory specialists in training to see if they had more accurate results with lung sounds recorded on an MP3 player. He said they were better at recognizing common combinations of breath sounds and wheezing using the device, though more subtle sounds were still a problem.
Skjodt and Hodgetts intend to provide subjects with reference recordings - a library of chest sounds in MP3 format - that helps them learn to differentiate one from another. And they are studying whether the devices could help doctors listening for heart and bowel sounds as well.
In an interview, Skjodt said MP3 players offer a variety of options that stethoscopes don't. Sounds can be recorded and filed for future comparison. MP3 files could also be transmitted over the phone or via the Internet, allowing distant experts to help analyze a problem in, say, a remote setting.
The devices are inexpensive, and can hold medical podcasts or be used as a recorder for dictating notes.
Frans de Jongh, a respiratory physiologist at the University of Amsterdam's Academic Medical Centre, says there's merit in the idea.
"Yes, there is certainly some utility to explore this," he said from Stockholm, where he is attending the congress. "(But) the difficulty is the interpretation of recorded sounds."
De Jongh said even if the sounds produced by an MP3 player are clearer, the fact remains that human ears must interpret what they mean.
"The difficulty is some may have a sound that you think . . . 'This is wheezing, this should be an asthmatic person' and then you measure by the gold standard, a spirometry test, and then you see that it's not the case," de Jongh said.
Spirometry uses an instrument to measure lung function.
