With better quality sound, reproducibility potential for computer analysis, file-sharing and verification, this new approach offers many benefits, as two Canadian researchers tell the ERS annual Congress in Stockholm.

The traditional stethoscope, fast approaching its second centenary, could soon have to give way to new digital technologies, which are undergoing spectacular development. Even the latest electronic stethoscopes cannot rival MP3 players, used today mainly for leisure purposes. So explained Neil Skjodt, of the Department of Medicine at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada), in his presentation to the annual Congress of the European Respiratory Society (ERS) in Stockholm.

Working with an audiologist colleague, Bill Hodgetts, Skjodt based his analysis on the conclusions of several recent studies, which had demonstrated that health care staff generally had mediocre auditory faculties, especially when using stethoscopes. In particular, a Danish study had shown two years earlier that medical staff at all levels had difficulty distinguishing most heart and lung sounds, and that their performance barely improved when they used an electronic stethoscope.

Two more recent studies had found that medical students sometimes had to…