Cell Phones and Medical Imaging

Cell phones are great for many things: I can keep in touch with my friends, send text messages, listen to music, and surf the web. But who ever thought that cellphones would be able to do more than keep people connected at the fingertips?

In May 2008, ScienceDaily.com reported that engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, developed a way to use cell phones to make medical imaging available to people all over the world. Medical imaging technology includes items such as ultrasounds and X-rays that can do everything from detecting tumors to monitoring fetuses. According to Boris Rubinsky, a UC Berkeley professor that helped developed this new application for cell phones, "Diagnosis and treatment of an estimated 20 percent of diseases would benefit from medical imaging, yet this advancement has been out of reach for millions of people in the world because the equipment is too costly to maintain."

Professor Rubinsky's system uses the cell phone to transmit raw data to a central server where the information is created into an image that is then sent back to the cell phone. This process simplifies the equipment needed to use medical imaging which lowers the cost of medical imaging. This cell phone system would be beneficial to doctors in poorer countries because they could have the tools they need to properly diagnose and treat their patients. Acquiring a cell phone capable of using this technology would be easy because the technology works with any cellphone that can send and receive graphics, video, and audio clips. 

One of my concerns with this cell phone medical imaging is how easy obtaining a cell phone in developing nations would be. However, a member of Professor Rubinsky's team reassures that even in remote villages, cellphones are found because little infrastructure is needed to maintain wireless networks. Dropped calls wouldn't be a big issue either because sending the imaging data is a lot easier than sending voice signals.  

As improvements in cell phone technologies are made, I'm glad that these new technologies allow people to do awesome things like surf the web and use GPS on their phones. I'm proud that these new technologies are headed toward making world-changing advancements such as medical imaging with cell phones possible.