A user case inspired by Flash Forward and a poll

Flash Forward is unsurprisingly one of the most exciting TV show of this year. As a result, I’m dying to watch a new episode every week. And when I do, I’m having a great time that leads to great discussions at the office about whether this is about future or not and how it can be modified. Nevertheless, I could notice a few weeks ago the interesting case of Edward Ned (also called Ned Ned) whose flash forward vision finds him in a club and having his skin totally black, whereas he’s white currently. Dr. Olivia Benford chooses to treat him as a regular patient no matter his flash forward but Dr. Bryce Varley -her colleague and now totally changed by his flash forward- has another opinion. Indeed, he thinks that this color change may be due to a disease; and that would explain many things regarding this patient. This is why he decides to refer to an online search engine to look for more information.

In order to know more about this Ned’s health condition, Bryce looks for “Pigment Change” in a symptoms search engine. His search returns 107 results and then helps him explain afetrwards that:

- Ned may have Addison’s disease which would explain why he’s black in the future (as he sees himself in his flashforward)
- The disease forces his body make melanine compounds instead of adrenaline
- Without Adrenaline his body is unable to build proper stress response (which explains he’s being so serene)

Obviously, novoseek has different goals (to the webpage Bryce is using) as it offers to explore the scientific literature. Nevertheless we can search for that disease -Addison’s disease- and observe what are the results like.

1. A search for Addison’s disease via the Advanced Search panel returns 2,563 results in Medline.
2. Observing the related concepts sidebar we can see that the most relevant diseases related to Addison’s disease are: Adrenal insufficiencies, primary adrenal insufficiency, autoimmune addisons disease, diabetes and Hyperpigmentation (with a relevance of 41%).

3. Also, the most relevant related Signs and Symptoms indicate: alopecia, fatigue, malaise, cryoglobulinemic purpura, scalp pruritus…
4. We click the “hyperpigmentation” disease and it is added to the current search: there are now 66 results in Medline
5. From there, we can start exploring the literature and read interesting publications such as Adrenal autoantibodies and organ-specific autoimmunity in patients with Addison’s disease, Generalized pigmentation due to Addison disease., Long-lasting subclinical Addison’s disease..
6. The reading of these is a good starting point to know more about the disease, its origins and possible treatments.

Obviously, this complementary information helps save Ned during surgery and Dr. Olivia Benford now has to admit that Ned’s Flash Forward actually helped save him. Based on that, we see the importance of research to know more about a disease, its symptoms and the existing treatments. Furthermore, a search for Addison’s Disease in US Grants could help know what are the current studies about this disease.

And now, I’m asking you:

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