For over two centuries, the stethoscope has been a cornerstone of clinical medicine, yet traditional acoustic models are limited by environmental noise, user experience, and the subjective nature of auscultation. Digital stethoscopes, augmented by signal processing, visualization tools, and Artificial Intelligence (AI), represent a transformative evolution in auscultatory practice. These devices convert acoustic signals into digital data, enabling amplification, noise reduction, and objective analysis through phonograms and spectrograms. AI integration enhances diagnostic accuracy by detecting and classifying cardiac and respiratory abnormalities, while connectivity features facilitate telemedicine, remote monitoring, and longitudinal patient care. Clinical studies consistently demonstrate the superiority of digital over acoustic stethoscopes in detecting subtle heart murmurs, lung sounds, and arrhythmias, particularly in complex or noisy settings. Beyond clinical diagnostics, digital stethoscopes serve as educational tools, providing visualized, recordable, and analyzable auscultatory data. As part of the emerging Medicine 3.0 ecosystem, these devices align with predictive, preventive, personalized, participatory, and precision (5P) medicine, offering new opportunities for global health equity, chronic disease management, and medical education. This review synthesizes current evidence on the technology, clinical performance, AI applications, and telemedicine integration of digital stethoscopes, highlighting their potential to redefine auscultation in the 21st century.

Cushing syndrome (CS) is an endocrine disease characterized by hypercortisolemia, which not only affects the function of the body’s multi-system organs, but also significantly increases the risk of venous thromboembolic events (VTE) due to the hypercoagulable state caused by the disease. However, VTE in CS patients has not received enough clinical attention. Current domestic guidelines for pulmonary thromboembolism (PTE) do not include CS as a risk factor for VTE. In view of the high incidence, morbidity and mortality of venous thromboembolism (VTE), this paper summarized 5 cases of Cushing syndrome complicated with pulmonary embolism admitted to our hospital recently, and reviewed the literature, aiming to improve clinicians’ awareness of this complication and reduce missed diagnosis or delayed diagnosis.