国家地理 你的医疗未来(7)（在线收听）

Some technologies dramatically enhance the accuracy and speed of clinicians' efforts. Identifying a bacterial or viral infection, and the best drugs to treat it, can mean long waits for blood cultures. But scientists have developed biochips that can do a complete microbial scan in a couple of hours, without culturing -- and in the process may identify mutations that make some microbes antibiotic resistant.

一些科技大幅提高了临床医师工作的准确度与速度。为了辨识细菌或病毒感染，以及找出最佳药物进行治疗，可能得花上长时间等待血液培养。但科学家已经开发出一种生物芯片，可在几个小时内完成微生物扫描--无需人工培养--而且在这个过程中还可能辨识出让某些微生物具有抗药性的突变。

The boom in research into the human microbiome -- the trillions of bacteria on and in each individual's body -- is encouraging new modes of diagnosis and increasing understanding. Genetic analysis could help unlock the many secrets of the gut microbiome, believed to play a role in the risk and development of obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, cardiovascular disease, and even neurologic conditions.

针对人体微生物群系（每个人体表和体内所存在的数兆只细菌）的研究正蓬勃发展，衍生出新的诊断模式和知识。遗传分析可以帮助解开肠道菌群的许多秘密，这些菌群可能是肥胖、炎症性肠病、心血管疾病甚至神经疾病的风险和发作的影响因子。

Thanks to artificial intelligence and machine learning, diagnostic tools can be trained to read tissue samples and radiologic scans. Google researchers fed more than a quarter-million patients' retinal scans into algorithms that recognize patterns -- and the technology "learned" to spot which patterns predict a patient has high blood pressure or is at increased risk for heart attack or stroke. In some comparisons, digital tools produced more accurate analyses than did human pathologists, dermatologists, or radiologists.

由于人工智能与机器学习，我们可以训练诊断工具来读取组织样本和放射性扫描。Google研究人员把超过25万名患者的视网膜扫描输入算法来辨识模式，而算法会“学习”识别哪些模式可以预测出患者罹患高血压，或者罹患心脏病或中风的风险将愈来愈高。在一些比较中，数字工具产生的分析结果，比人类病理学家、皮肤科医师或放射科医生更加准确。