DigiScope could improve diagnosis of heart conditions

Because the DigiScope also works like a normal stethoscope, it will be especially useful for training purposes and for health professionals not familiar with chest medicine.

For trained physicians, the stethoscope still plays an important role in initial clinical assessment, quickly flagging up possible abnormalities for more detailed examination with, for example, electrocardiograms (ECGs).

However, auscultation (listening to internal sounds within the body via a stethoscope) is a hard skill to master. Heart sounds are of low frequency and the intervals between events are in the order of milliseconds, making it difficult to distinguish the subtle changes between a normal and a pathological heart sound.

A team of academics from Portugal led efforts to develop the DigiScope and called on sound engineers from Queen Mary University London (QMUL) to process the audio waveforms.

‘We usually do things on musical sound analysis but this sounded like an interesting project where we might be able to help, using some of the same sorts of ideas,’ QMUL’s Prof Mark Plumbley said.