Ear infections are the most common reason that parents bring their children to a pediatrician, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This condition occurs when fluid builds up in the middle ear behind the eardrum and is infected. Any kind of fluid buildup can be painful and make it hard for children to hear, which can be especially detrimental when they are learning to talk. The condition is hard to diagnose because they have vague symptoms: Sometimes children tug on their ears or have fevers, and sometimes there are no symptoms. In addition, young children may not be able to describe where they hurt.

Now researchers at the University of Washington have created a new smartphone app that can detect fluid behind the eardrum by simply using a piece of paper and a smartphone’s microphone and speaker. An article detailing the app’s functionality is posted on the University of Washington’s media portal, UW News. The smartphone makes a series of soft audible chirps into the ear through a small paper funnel and, depending on the way the chirps are reflected back to the phone, the app determines the likelihood of fluid present with a probability of detection of 85%. This is on par with current methods used by specialists to detect fluid in the middle ear, which involve specialized tools that use acoustics or a puff of air. The team published its results May 15 in Science Translational Medicine.

“Designing an accurate screening tool on something as ubiquitous as a smartphone can be game changing for parents as well as health care providers in resource-limited regions,” said co-author Shyam Gollakota, an associate professor in the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. “A key advantage of our technology is that it does not require any additional hardware other than a piece of paper and a software app running on the smartphone.” Once detected, ear infections can be easily treated with observation or antibiotics, and persistent fluid can be monitored or drained by a doctor to relieve symptoms of pain or hearing loss.

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