Research in Australia indicates that Google searches can emerge as a valuable resource for physicians in diagnosing rare disorders. Akhila Thyli Hemanth reports.

Physicians often have a problem in diagnosing obscure or perplexing medical conditions. They can now find in Dr Google a ready aid says a study. With the increasing number of medical maladies, it''s unreasonable to expect a doctor to be a walking encyclopedia. Although the brain is quasi computer, there is a limit to how much information it can assimilate and recall at the right time.

Clinical misdiagnosis is still commonplace despite modern diagnostics tools as a result of which patients end up being treated for the wrong illness.

Google, a trusted brand name for reliable searches with a veritable repertoire of information gleaned from its access to an estimated over three billion journals on the web in an easy to use format, may soon be able to provide succor to medicos all over the world.

A team of researchers at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, Australia, decided to carry out a study to determine how often Google searches lead doctors to the correct diagnosis.

They identified 26 difficult diagnostic cases published in the case records of the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005 that included rare conditions such as Cushing''s syndrome (a hormonal disorder) Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (a fatal brain disorder) cat scratch disease (swelling of lymph nodes after an animal scratch) which Google identified correctly and one — ''hot tub lung and brain abscess'' which it misdiagnosed.

"Our study suggests that in difficult diagnostic cases, it is often useful to Google for a diagnosis," Dr Hangwi Tang and Dr Jennifer Hwee Kwoon Ng wrote.

Selecting three to five clusters of symptom-related search words, they searched Google while being blind to the correct diagnoses. They compared a percentage of correct diagnoses from the search with the diagnoses as published in the New England Journal of Medicine and found 15, or 58 per cent, of the cases tallying.

"Web-based search engines are becoming the latest tools in clinical medicine, and doctors in training need to become proficient in their use", Tang said in the study published online by the British Medical Journal.

As described in the New England Journal of Medicine, a doctor surprised her colleagues and a distinguished professor by correctly diagnosing IPEX (immunodeficiency, polyendocrinopathy, enteropathy, X linked) syndrome. She admitted that the diagnoses "popped right up" after she entered the salient features into Google.

"The potential benefit is that Google is good at finding documents with co-occurrence of words (i.e. symptoms), and this can be very helpful when there is a set of unusual symptoms and signs," Tang said.

However, this new era of information has some potential drawbacks.
"The most obvious drawback is believing everything one reads, therefore, doctors need to have skills in critical appraisal of stuff they find on the net," says Tang. Similarly, "patients doing a search should use common sense, so if something is too good to be true, then... Another potential drawback is self-diagnosis by patients. I don''t think search engines can ever replace a good clinician who has plenty of common sense." Tang elaobrates.

Dr Venkatesh Murthy, a consulting GI (gastro intestinal) surgeon, says," This is most useful for rare and unusual medical conditions, but a doctor should be the primary user as he is specialised in this field and would be more likely to reach a correct diagnosis than a patient, who may find the interpretation difficult." He recommends a consultation with a physician.

Vascular surgeon Dr Vivekanand, says that he would probably use Google Health for reference and to substantiate his diagnoses but "would not rely on it, and would not go by case reports as it might not be accurate."

What this means to Google
Though there are some mixed responses to Dr Google, it is one of the most preferred search engines. In a constant bid to better itself and to stay ahead of competition from Yahoo! and MSN, Google is introducing several new features in the near future, and Google Health is just one of the topic-specific related search capabilities built out of a new Google feature called Co-Op, where web addresses can be posted or swapped.

By piling on more search features, Google is playing to its core strength of internet search queries which translates into more search revenues. Each time a consumer clicks on an advertisement, which runs alongside the search results, it generates revenue. So the larger the audience, the higher the probability the consumer will click on the ad.

By diversifying into different features, Google is now seeking a bigger slice of the ad pie by focusing on the quality of their results. Google''s slice of the advertising pie is said to be $13.4 million annually. As Google CEO Eric Schmidt said, "internet search is what will keep Google in front for now and the immediate future."

Google Trends was the first of the many features looking at similar word traffic, a newer version of Google Desktop that can incorporate many existing Google features like Google video or the fairly new Google calendar (a rival to the dominance of desktop software by the "convicted monopolist" MSN) and Google Notebook similar to a Post-it note for your desktop so that each time you search, the results will have the option to "note this", which will then transfer the link to a small notepad on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, are many of the new search features.

To give a wider reach to its advertisers, Google is now looking at adding television, print, internet or radio to the medium. TV ads by Google will ultimately build off its purchase of dMarc Broadcasting, a company that provides digital radio advertisements, and YouTube. Since Google radio ads are doing well, there is a tendency to view TV for advertisements more seriously.

"Clearly, there''s an opportunity," says Jonathan Rosenberg, a Google senior vice president. "TV will become more of a search-based paradigm, so there''s an opportunity to marry search with TV."

Google has also tried to sell ad space in newspapers and magazines, apart from the Internet and radio. Microsoft and Yahoo! still have to get this kind of reach.