Detecting anemia – one of the most common blood diseases in the world – will get much more simple. Now you will only need a smartphone thanks to an app developed by experts from the Emory University.
Nowadays doctors typically diagnose anemia using a complete blood count (CBC). But the app can do pretty much the same with anemia and all it needs is a photo of your nails. As the authors of the app explain in a study published in the Nature Communications journal explain – they managed to create an algorithm capable of analyzing the color of the nail bed and give hemoglobin count based of that.
To get the algorithm they first took 227 photos of nails of people who already had their blood hemoglobin levels known thanks to a CBC. From there, they created the algorithm that is capable to connect different colors with different hemoglobin levels. When they then tested in on a hundred new subjects they found out it is sufficiently accurate to work as a screening for anemia.
Sources:
- https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-12/ehs-nbr113018.php
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07262-2
