Mobile phone cameras a promising diagnostic aid

THE quality of photos from mobile phone cameras may be of sufficient resolution to aid medical diagnosis.

A Norwegian obstetrician recently diagnosed the relatively uncommon condition of Raynaud’s phenomenon of the nipple in a patient who cleverly snapped photos of her triphasic nipple colour changes.

The 25-year-old woman reported frequent episodes of extreme bilateral nipple pain in pregnancy, with her nipples changing colour from white (accompanied by tingling pain), to blue (burning pain) and red (numbness), triggered by exposure to cold.

Raynaud’s phenomenon was likely an underdiagnosed cause of nipple pain, the authors of the case report said, because the symptoms from an episode had usually vanished by the time the patient got to see a GP.

BMJ 2009; 339:b2553