St. John’s-based Sparrow BioAcoustics has won United States Food and Drug Administration approval for its smartphone stethoscope app.

The app uses a phone’s internal microphones, along with software processing, to allow the device to function as an ad hoc stethoscope when it is held against a patient’s chest.

Trials were conducted at Newfoundland’s Eastern Health Medical Centre, where 70 percent of the medical professionals who tried the app rated it as offering better sound quality than competing products. It also produced higher rates of correct diagnoses.

In a press release, the company did not specify what those competing products were, but other options in the marketplace typically require peripheral devices. Stethophone, as Sparrow dubs its system, is unique for its use of the phone’s internal mic, the company said.

“Our goal is to enable large-scale, rapid detection of cardiac and pulmonary symptoms, wherever they occur,” said CEO Mark Attila Opauszky in a statement. “There is a world of diagnostic information contained in chest sounds, and the healthcare system needs a practical way to capture this data and put it to work for the benefit of patients. Stethophone eliminates the main obstacles to doing that.”

Stethophone was designed by a team of researchers including Sparrow Co-Founder Dr. Yaroslav Shpak, a Ukranian cardiologist.

“Stethophone captures gallops, murmurs and arrhythmias indicative of numerous progressive cardiac diseases,” said Shpak. “Heart and lung sounds provide fast and exceptionally rich diagnostic information enabling early detection and quicker treatment”

Sparrow also previously completed Halifax startup hub Volta’s Cohort accelerator program in 2019. The company was based in Nova Scotia at the time.