Diagnostic Dilemma? Just Google It?

Google is the 800-pound gorilla of search engines, but can it help diagnose difficult medical cases? To assess this, authors reviewed 26 clinical case records from 1 year of the New England Journal of Medicine and chose three to five search terms for each case. Then, blinded from the differential and final diagnoses, they performed a Google search and compared the three most prominent Google diagnoses with the correct diagnoses.

Google searches identified the correct diagnosis in 15 cases (58%). The authors speculate that a Google search is most likely to give the correct diagnosis in cases with unique signs and symptoms that can be used as search terms.