This week, an American research study reported on the dangers of health apps, as many use smartphones and tablets to diagnose. The Guardian reports:

This week a research paper published in the Archives of Dermatology looked at four smartphone apps designed to help people diagnose their skin lesions as benign moles or melanomas. It showed that the accuracy of the apps in identifying lesions that were melanomas varied between 6.8% and 98.1%. The best results were with an app that sent the image of the lesion directly to a board-certified dermatologist for analysis. The worst ones used automatic algorithms to analyse images.

Full article

Research paper

Image: iStockphoto