CerviSpot
As part of the International Day for Prevention of Cancer of the Uterine Cervix, on March 26, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid presented CerviSpot, an application that could help to detect cancerous cells.
For an end of course project, Jerónimo Pérez, a fifth year Telecommunications Engineering student, designed a video game to analyze medical images of cervical cytology (tissues where pre-cancerous cells can be detected). Jerónimo has also received a grant for MalariaSpot, a project by the Grupo de Investigación de Tecnología de Imágenes Biomédicas.
The game is aimed at both children and adults and consists of a fish that takes samples under the sea and classifies them in the categories “Correct Selection”, “Incorrect Selection”, or “Sample Unknown”. The data collected from the different sections are then compiled to see whether by combining the classifications of all the players a concrete result can be arrived at. The final challenge is to find a low cost method of analysis for these kinds of images.
The application can be used with different devices: for a free download, click here.
TuberSpot
For International Tuberculosis Day, March 24, the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid released TuberSpot, a videogame that could help to diagnose tuberculosis.
Developed by researchers at the Group of Biomedical Imaging Technology at the Higher Technical School of Telecommunications Engineers, the application seeks to test the viability of collective tele-diagnosis.
During the game, users are presented with real images of patients and must look for tuberculosis bacteria within a certain period of time. Game points are awarded by comparing the bacilli selected by the player with those previously detected by professionals. In future versions, samples that have not been analyzed by experts will be included.
The application is free and is already available for Windows Phone and Android while a version for iOS will be released soon.
Precedents
The researchers and makers of these games were inspired by the success of the application MalariaSpot, which is designed to help with diagnosing malaria.
It was discovered that by combining the results of 22 different players on the same sample, a result equal to that of a health professional could be achieved. This information was produced by a study involving over twelve thousand games played by users from a hundred different countries.
