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Can a Smartphone Listen to Your Heart? A Performance Study on Detecting Abnormalities in Your Heart Sounds

Smartphone-Based Use of Phonocardiography Technique for Detection of Murmurs: Diagnostic Performance Study Protocol

Status
Active, not recruiting
Phases
Unknown
Study type
Observational
Source
ClinicalTrials.gov
Registry ID
NCT06070298
Acronym
AUSC1
Enrollment
577
Registered
2023-10-06
Start date
2023-12-01
Completion date
2025-05-31
Last updated
2025-04-24

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Cardiovascular Abnormalities, Heart Murmurs, Valvular Heart Disease

Keywords

Auscultation, Smartphone, Heart Sounds, Heart Auscultation, Phonocardiography, Stethoscopes, Telemedicine

Brief summary

This observational study aims to assess the performance of the software called ausculto™. ausculto™ is a collection of computer algorithms that intend to analyse heart sounds recorded from the built-in microphone of a smartphone for abnormal sounds. Participants will have their heart sounds recorded during their regular clinic appointment after consenting to participate in this study. Researchers will manually annotate the recorded heart sounds to create a database for use in future training and testing of artificial intelligence (AI) intended for medical uses.

Interventions

DIAGNOSTIC_TESTComputer algorithms

Collection of lightweight computer algorithms called ausculto™ that is designed to perform real-time heart sound analysis to detect heart murmur.

Sponsors

Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health
CollaboratorUNKNOWN
The University of Hong Kong
CollaboratorOTHER
Wong Chun Ka
Lead SponsorOTHER

Study design

Observational model
CASE_CONTROL
Time perspective
CROSS_SECTIONAL

Eligibility

Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
22 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

* Age: ≥22 years (adult) * Outpatients who have undergone echocardiography within 3 years at their normal non-research follow-up clinic visit appointment Exclusion Criterion: * Implanted active medical devices in the torso, such as pacemakers and defibrillators

Design outcomes

Primary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Sensitivity of ausculto™ Using Auscultation Paired with Echocardiography as Ground TruthDay 0Sensitivity is defined as the percentage of true positives out of all positive cases from the ground truth. Cardiologist electronic stethoscope heart sound recording annotations paired with echocardiography diagnosis will be used as the ground truth. Heart sound recordings from electronic stethoscope will be rated by two independent cardiologists for presence or absence of murmur, with a third cardiologist consulted in case of disagreement.
Specificity of ausculto™ Using Auscultation Paired with Echocardiography as Ground TruthDay 0Specificity is defined as the percentage of true negatives out of all negative cases from the ground truth. Cardiologist electronic stethoscope heart sound recording annotations paired with echocardiography diagnosis will be used as the ground truth. Heart sound recordings from electronic stethoscope will be rated by two independent cardiologists for presence or absence of murmur, with a third cardiologist consulted in case of disagreement.

Secondary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Sensitivity of ausculto™ Using Echocardiography as Ground TruthDay 0Sensitivity is defined as the percentage of true positives out of all positive cases from the ground truth. Echocardiography diagnosis will be used as the ground truth.
Specificity of ausculto™ Using Echocardiography as Ground TruthDay 0Specificity is defined as the percentage of true negatives out of all negative cases from the ground truth. Echocardiography diagnosis will be used as the ground truth.
Positive Predictive Value of ausculto™ Using Auscultation Paired with Echocardiography as Ground TruthDay 0Positive predictive value is defined as the percentage of true positives out of all positive results from ausculto™. Cardiologist electronic stethoscope heart sound recording annotations paired with echocardiography diagnosis will be used as the ground truth. Heart sound recordings from electronic stethoscope will be rated by two independent cardiologists for presence or absence of murmur, with a third cardiologist consulted in case of disagreement.
Negative Predictive Value of ausculto™ Using Auscultation Paired with Echocardiography as Ground TruthDay 0Negative predictive value is defined as the percentage of true negatives out of all negative results from ausculto™. Cardiologist electronic stethoscope heart sound recording annotations paired with echocardiography diagnosis will be used as the ground truth. Heart sound recordings from electronic stethoscope will be rated by two independent cardiologists for presence or absence of murmur, with a third cardiologist consulted in case of disagreement.
Sensitivity of ausculto™ Using Auscultation as Ground TruthDay 0Sensitivity is defined as the percentage of true positives out of all positive cases from the ground truth. Cardiologist electronic stethoscope heart sound recording annotations will be used as the ground truth. Heart sound recordings from electronic stethoscope will be rated by two independent cardiologists for presence or absence of murmur, with a third cardiologist consulted in case of disagreement.
Negative Predictive Value of ausculto™ Using Auscultation as Ground TruthDay 0Negative predictive value is defined as the percentage of true negatives out of all negative results from ausculto™. Cardiologist electronic stethoscope heart sound recording annotations will be used as the ground truth. Heart sound recordings from electronic stethoscope will be rated by two independent cardiologists for presence or absence of murmur, with a third cardiologist consulted in case of disagreement.
Positive Predictive Value of ausculto™ Using Echocardiography as Ground TruthDay 0Positive predictive value is defined as the percentage of true positives out of all positive results from ausculto™. Echocardiography diagnosis will be used as the ground truth.
Negative Predictive Value of ausculto™ Using Echocardiography as Ground TruthDay 0Negative predictive value is defined as the percentage of true negatives out of all negative results from ausculto™. Echocardiography diagnosis will be used as the ground truth.
Number of Adverse Events Reported by Participants Deemed to be Caused by the Observational ProceduresDay 0 to Day 1
Positive Predictive Value of ausculto™ Using Auscultation as Ground TruthDay 0Positive predictive value is defined as the percentage of true positives out of all positive results from ausculto™. Cardiologist electronic stethoscope heart sound recording annotations will be used as the ground truth. Heart sound recordings from electronic stethoscope will be rated by two independent cardiologists for presence or absence of murmur, with a third cardiologist consulted in case of disagreement.
Specificity of ausculto™ Using Auscultation as Ground TruthDay 0Specificity is defined as the percentage of true negatives out of all negative cases from the ground truth. Cardiologist electronic stethoscope heart sound recording annotations will be used as the ground truth. Heart sound recordings from electronic stethoscope will be rated by two independent cardiologists for presence or absence of murmur, with a third cardiologist consulted in case of disagreement.

Countries

China

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026