Atopic Dermatitis: a Short Summary
What “apps” are available and do they work ?
- At the time of this presentation about 1 million apps are available app store 50 billion downloads
- 17000 apps are health-related – evidence about their reliability is mostly lacking. They are projected to generate $26 billion revenue in 2017
- In 33% physicians are NOT involved in their development
- apps are not quality checked before being made available (except for language, profanity etc…)
- At the time of publication there are 250 dermatology apps, half of them are linked to skin cancer
Utility of apps: people nowadays want more autonomy and no not necessarily want to consult a dermatologist if not necessary. In general people who die of melanoma are the ones who don’t see a dermatologist (because the lesions grow unchecked).
Available apps
- information apps: how UV acts on the skin, how to use a sunscreen. ABCD rule…
- autodetection apps (detection): automatic detection of lesions (Melapp…)
- follow-up apps: UMskincheck…
- teleconsult apps (idoc24, cellscope, spruce): picture sent to the dermatologist who makes the diagnosis
Autodetection apps do not really work:
- Overall up to 33% of melanomas missed are.
- low specificity and sensitivity.
- The Exception are teledermatology apps (picture sent to the dermatologist who makes the diagnosis)source: retropsective study by Wolff JA et al. (JAMA dermatol. 2013
How should they work ?
- They should not miss a melanoma: difficult because even dermatologists can miss them
- Only use informative apps and avoid automated diagnosis apps ?
Sometimes pictures are not perfect (blurry) and the question is how research (real-time) can be done to improve the apps
Conclusion: overall not enough for now (at the time of publication)
What does the future hold ?
-watches
-glasses
-apple (epic)
-google health (discontinued)
-facebook has health plans
-total body gigapixel camera
Contributors
Dr Christophe Hsu – dermatologist. Geneva, Switzerland
Source of information: 2014 (10) – Bekkenk M. EADV Annual Meeting, Amsterdam The Netherlands
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