The Information Revolution
Digital biomarkers will revolutionize medicine
Andrey Smirnov, Hi-tech+
The medicine of the future will be created not only and not so much by DNA tests or gene therapy. The revolution in healthcare is being made before our eyes by so–called digital biomarkers - huge amounts of information transmitted by hundreds of millions of medical and fitness applications, as well as wearable devices.
According to Markets and Markets, the global medical wearable device market will reach $12.1 billion by 2021. Back in 2016, there were 274 million different wearable devices for health and fitness in the world. The exponential growth of their number leads to the accumulation of astronomical amounts of data on the health status of hundreds of millions of people, writes Medical Futurist.
According to a Stanford University study, in 2013, the volume of medical data collected by applications and digital devices amounted to 153 exabytes (an exabyte is a billion gigabytes).
By 2020, 2,314 exabytes of digital biomarkers will be accumulated, which means a growth rate of 48% per year.
In combination with big data processing systems – first of all, medical AI – digital biomarkers will allow real-time monitoring of the health status of both individuals and very large groups of the population. In fact, each person will be under constant medical supervision.
For example, in February of this year, a study of the prevalence and intensity of chronic pain began on an unprecedented sample of patients from 10 thousand people. Such research was made possible by wearable gadgets – Apple, Garmin and running on Android OS.
Here, for example, are samples of digital cardiograms that Apple Watch makes under different user conditions:
There are also negative sides to the mass use of smartwatches, medical applications and fitness trackers. In a polyclinic or hospital, clinical studies are carried out by specialists who guarantee the accuracy of measurements. This cannot be said about wearable devices. Some of them are not approved at all by the regulator, which monitors the accuracy and safety of medical devices.
The measurement data can also be completely different. A person can do, for example, an ECG at home using five different digital devices. Although the results should be similar, in fact the quality and details of the measurements differ significantly. And this may be important in the framework of professional medical research.
Large volumes of digital biomarkers are necessary, first of all, for the full operation of diagnostic systems based on artificial intelligence. For example, an AI has recently been developed that predicts the development of Alzheimer's disease. The neural network was trained on the data of many patients who have this disease at different stages.
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