The medical imaging industry benefits from innovative products and services that enhance workflows and yield optimal results for radiologists. As a result, patients can get better pictures of the conditions and injuries they have and understand the steps required to fully recover.
Recently, several researchers have made strides in improving medical devices to the point where doctors will soon be able to conduct exams without the need for huge equipment.
Bolstering point-of-care services for patients
The hospital operating room is typically stocked with machines that allow surgeons to see inside bodies prior to performing procedures. However, primary care physicians often have not been able to use the same beneficial equipment – until now.
A team of engineers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign developed a new imaging device specifically for point-of-care scenarios. The handheld scanner would allow physicians to image sites that they normally examine, such as bacterial colonies in the middle of the ear that can be captured in 3-D. They would even be able to identify the thickness and health of patients' retinas.
The device relies on optical coherence tomography, a technology that is akin to ultrasound imaging but uses light to produce images rather than sound. Lead researcher Stephen Boppart, Ph.D., explained that doctors use stripped down instruments to diagnose and monitor chronic conditions. At times, these are insufficient tools that can negatively impact care strategies. With the handheld imaging device, clinicians could have a quantifiable manner to assess infections and other conditions that could lead to more accurate referrals to specialists.
Boppart and his colleagues earned a $5 million National Institutes of Health Bioengineering Research Partnership grant to refine the device for production. They might face some competition in the market, though, as a startup company has tossed its hat into the ring of handheld diagnostic imaging.
Bringing AI to MRI
According to Wired, three-year-old startup Butterfly Network recently revealed that it received $100 million in funding to create a handheld imaging device that can make MRIs more efficient and less expensive. The goal is to automate much of the capturing process, and if the company is successful, the product could reach clinics and retail pharmacies in roughly a year.
CEO Jonathan Rothberg explained that the device will walk users through the digital imaging process using instructions that share similarities with Apple's Panorama snapshot application. It can generate 3-D images in real time and send the finished scans to a cloud platform for storage. From there, doctors can access the results and zoom in to find identifying characteristics of countless conditions.
What separates this device from others is the use of "deep learning" technology, which is the same artificial intelligence used by Google and Facebook for image recognition. This means that the more often physicians use the device, the smarter the technology becomes. So far, Butterfly has provided the proof-of-concept that the device can work, but an actual prototype will not be built for 18 months.
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Ronny Bachrach
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