A start-up reinvents the stethoscope thanks to AI to save lives

In the midst of Vivatech, and straight from Switzerland, the start-up One Scope unveiled the pneumoscope, which intends to mark the history of health by combining multifunction equipment and artificial intelligence. With its plastic hotel doorbell tunes, the pneumoscope is an electron stethoscope, but also much more than that. Almost two hundred and ten years after the invention by René Laënnec of the stethoscope, which saved millions of lives and ice a few breasts, the young Swiss company, from the Geneva University Hospital Center, aims to respond to many challenges, from the prevention of pulmonary diseases to the fight against the effects of medical deserts …

A connected stethoscope, and a little more …

Connected to a smartphone, the pneumoscope is above all an intelligent stethoscope that allows you to listen to the heart, of course, but above all the lungs. However, the pneumoscope is not just a stethoscope. It has two other sensors that allow it to combine a frontal thermometer and a pulse oximeter. The latter makes it possible to measure the oxygen level in the blood and the heart rate, “two important indicators of the severity of a respiratory disease”, justifies Alexandre Pérez, technical director of the start-up.

An intelligent app and algorithm

An application developed specifically makes it possible to guide the user, including medical staff who have not been trained in the use of a stethoscope, continues the representative of One Scope.

Then, once, the well -placed device, a countdown is displayed on the smartphone screen, the measurement time. The recording is then entrusted to a local AI model, which allows the device to operate in connected or disconnected mode. It can even last ten days without recharging its battery – and is water resistant.
He has been trained from a database collected by doctors for four years in ten countries.

The pneumoscope is thus capable of early detecting certain respiratory diseases, such as COPD (chronic obstructive bronchopneumopathy).

In the event of a hypothetical COVID-25, it would be enough to recollect a certain number of data to regain algorithms with enough precision to avoid false positives. An application update would then be enough to allow the device to detect this “new” disease, assures us Alexandre Pérez.

Detection, prevention and decision assistance

The pneumoscope is thus capable of early detecting certain respiratory diseases, such as COPD (chronic obstructive bronchopneumopathy). A disease that can become very serious, even fatal, if it is not taken care of in a suitable manner and as soon as possible. Smokers are most often affected, and also people exposed to significant air pollution. In this case, the “lungs shazam”, as its designers called it, then used to prevention of serious illness.

But the pneumoscope is much more than determining if a person suffers from a lung disease. It also makes it possible to detect advancement, severity. Alexandre Pérez gives an example of decision assistance for people who are not trained in medicine. “This will allow parents whose child is asthmatic and who make a crisis to measure their severity, to know if ventoline will suffice or if they have to go to the emergency room”.

To complete the teleconsultations

At first, however, One Scope rather thinks of putting his product in the hands of medical staff in hospitals or liberal medicine firms to “validate his credibility”. A first step has already been taken in this direction when the team behind the project has published an article in the journal Nature Digital Medicine, rightly rejoices Alexandre Pérez.

In addition, the pneumoscope “could help nurses and pharmacists, who are not always trained to listen to the lungs, to recognize respiratory diseases”, continues the Swiss official. Ditto with “health agents without medical qualification” which sometimes manage the remote control stations. Their tool will then provide remote doctors with reliable and useful data for refining their diagnosis.

The pneumoscope will have its place in “patients with chronic respiratory diseases”, who will thus be able to provide data regularly to their doctor.

Then, plans Alexandre Pérez, the pneumoscope will have its place in “patients with chronic respiratory diseases”, who will thus be able to provide data regularly to their doctor, “thus unclogging a under tension, especially in Europe”.

A good way to combat difficulties accessing care in medical deserts. But also in countries with low resources, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon or Mozambique, lists the technical director of One Scope. “Countries where there is a glaring lack of doctors, with a doctor for 10,000 inhabitants in rural areas,” he says. Regions of the globe where “respiratory diseases, such as pneumonia, are the first causes of mortality in children under the age of five”.

The price of a three in one

The “Shazam of the Lungs” is not yet marketed, but should be at the start “between 300 and 500 euros”, explains Alexandra Pérez before justifying this price positioning, designed to be competitive compared to the separate purchase of the three tools it brings together. “A medical stethoscope, like a Littmann, costs between 200 and 250 euros,” said the manager of the Swiss start-up. A beautiful sum to which are added the approximately 50 euros of a thermometer and the 150 to 200 euros with a medical pulse oximeter.

A real “medical device”

Because, and this is an essential point, under a long process, the pneumoscope is certified and is therefore a real medical device (class IIA). This means that it can be used in hospital circles and by health professionals.
Alexandre Pérez also indicates that his product will soon arrive at the end of the process of obtaining CE marking, “that he should obtain by the end of the year or the beginning of next year”. Therefore the product can be sold in all European countries. A beautiful market opens to this intelligent stethoscope. But, One Scope already sees greater, and already has the idea of ​​spreading to the United States thereafter. This will obviously go through a FDA certification. A long and demanding process, but for that too, the “lungs shazam” seems to know the music …

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