He discovered that he had cancer trying an iPhone with ultrasounds

If you are a hypochondriac person maybe this news does not like you too much (or yes), since an iPhone plugged into an ultrasound device has been enough for a doctor to be able to autodetect a cancer.

John Martin is a medical surgeon, and recently began working as medical director for Butterfly Network, a Connecticut start-up that, among other business areas, has developed the first ultrasound device that can be used by anyone without a specific training in medicine.

Martin's surprise came when, testing the Butterfly IQ - the name with which they have named the machine -, he found a black spot on his throat and soon recognized it as a cancerous tumor (thanks, yes, to his training as a doctor). In fact, I had been having discomfort in that part of my neck for a long time.

However, the idea that Butterfly Network has is that the Butterfly IQ is accessible to everyone. Despite its starting price, about $ 1,700, it will be much cheaper than any other machine that does the same, with the additional advantage that it can be carried in your pocket and does not require a previous installation.



The images that are obtained are not as precise or as high resolution as with a large scanner, but its creators say that, as the first analysis of the part of the body that you want to explore, it is totally valid. In fact, there are already doctors who in some emergency departments of hospitals are testing them as quick analysis before doing a much deeper one.

For its part, in the not too distant future, the company wants to accompany this gadget with artificial intelligence so that a beginner can directly collect the images and interpret them, in addition to calculating how much blood the heart pumps at that moment to, and by the way, try to detect problems in the arteries or in the organ itself