A convenient and miniature apparatus for ultrasound diagnostics was created
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Most people are familiar with this kind of diagnosis, like ultrasound. What does a standard ultrasound machine look like? This is quite a cumbersome installation with a hotel monitor, which is installed permanently, or can move around the room on special wheels. Agree, it is not always convenient, is not it?
Specialists, working with Butterfly Network, have developed a new device. Its features are exclusive portability and mobility.
The company has already announced the immediate availability of advanced ultrasound devices. According to the creators, the device will easily fit in your pocket, and the performance will not yield to its predecessor.
The new device also has one more important advantage: its cost will be several times cheaper than other similar diagnostic devices.
How will the new portable device look like, which the creators called iQ? In size, it will not be more than an electric shaver or remote control from a TV.
Familiar for patients ultrasound devices contain devices with quartz crystals. Electricity passes through them, which leads to the appearance of vibration and ultrasonic vibrations. Waves, penetrating through human tissues, are returned and fixed by a special sensor. Information in this case is transformed into a pulse and displayed on the monitor in a familiar form.
The new portable device does not contain quartz: the crystals are replaced by capacitive ultrasonic transducers - metal plates, fixed between a pair of electrodes, which are built into the hardware chip. One such chip can accommodate about 9,000 similar elements that send and receive sound vibrations and transform them into a three-dimensional image. The chip can perform half a trillion operations in one second, but the creators did not "greedy" and integrated into the device a neural network based on artificial intelligence, as well as augmented reality. Instead of a monitor, you can use a smartphone, a tablet or a laptop. The information obtained in the diagnosis is placed in the "cloud": it can not be difficult to see for any doctor from anywhere in the world.
The approximate cost of the new device is about 2 thousand US dollars. For comparison, a standard ultrasound machine can cost from fifteen to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The FDA has already approved the use of iQ in medical institutions that perform diagnostics in the field of urology, cardiology, gynecology, etc. According to one of the developers of the device, physicians will have to deal with a very simple to use device . "The first device will be tested by doctors and other medical workers who have a certain level of training in the field of ultrasound diagnostics. But in the future the device can be fully used by paramedics and nurses - if necessary. "
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