iQ new device allows you to use your smartphone for ultrasound

In 2011, entrepreneur engineer Jonathan Rothberg created the world's first DNA sequencer, and then Rothberg founded Butterfly Network, which recently launched a new device called iQ equipped with artificial intelligence (AI). ), allows you to use your smartphone for ultrasound. He said: Butterfly iQ is a cheap AI smart handheld ultrasound tool that will revolutionize the medical imaging of hospitals and clinics, 2) change the rules of global health, and 3) eventually become like a home thermometer Consumer products, he said.

Essentially, iQ is an on-chip medical imaging tool that allows ultrasound to be used by everyone. You don't need to be a lab technician to figure out how to operate iQ. It includes 13 clinical applications including heart scans, fetal and obstetric examinations, and musculoskeletal examinations. iQ works with the user's iPhone instead of dedicated hardware for control and image display. The company said it will begin shipping in 2018, initially priced at about $2,000.

iQ new device allows you to use your smartphone for ultrasound

The photo shows a medical professional holding a smartphone and the other holding an ultrasonic stick

But this is only the beginning, Rothberg told IEEE Spectrum. He expects to lower prices on handheld devices and has begun researching new products. He said: "In the next two years, we will release a patch that uses ultrasound to monitor patients and can swallow a pill to see cancer from the body.

All of this is possible because Butterfly uses a technology that is very different from traditional ultrasound, and Rothberg says its "on-chip ultrasound" takes advantage of the sophisticated mass-market manufacturing technology of computer chips. He said: "We put all the elements on the semiconductor wafer, and then we can cut the wafer into 48 ultra-low-cost ultrasonic machines.

Today's ultrasound systems use piezoelectric crystals to convert electrical energy into vibrations in the form of ultrasound. A typical system has a display screen on a huge car and images different depths within the body. These machines can cost more than $100,000. While there are smaller, less expensive devices, such as GE's handheld Vscan products, they still use expensive piezoelectric technology and require multiple probes, priced between $8,000 and $20,000.

Developing an iQ-based chip is a two-step process. First, Butterfly's engineers replaced the piezoelectric components with micromachines, which act like a snare drum, generating vibration. Inside this "capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer" (CMUT), the applied voltage moves the membrane to send ultrasound waves into the body. A wave film that bounces back from various body tissues and registers as an electrical signal to create an image. Butterfly's technology is based on research by Stanford University professor Pierre Khuri-Yakub, a member of the Butterfly Scientific Advisory Board.

The photo shows the semiconductor chip between the finger and the thumb

Rothberg explains that a typical ultrasound system requires a separate probe for different clinical applications because the crystal must be tuned during manufacture to produce the correct type of ultrasound imaged at a particular depth. But the Butterfly iQ can be adjusted. He said: "We have 10,000 such micro-mechanical sensors on the probe, which gives us a large dynamic range.

The second innovation was to eliminate the wiring of a typical piezoelectric probe to an electronic control and display. Butterfly's tiny machine is directly connected to a semiconductor layer containing all the necessary amplifiers, signal processors, etc.

Independent experts say the technology sounds promising, but they will still wait and see if Butterfly iQ can fulfill Rosberg's ideas. Torben Becker, an emergency room doctor at the University of Florida Hospital, said: "People in the medical community tend to be conservative. When someone claims to have found a miraculous drug or treatment, I doubt it.

Becker said portable ultrasound tools are currently a niche technology - some emergency doctors are experimenting with them, but they have not caught them. He said: "There is definitely a reason for you to take something out of your pocket and use it in the exam. However, the quality of the portable tools he has tried so far is not as good as that of large systems," Becker said. The image is transferred to the hospital's database for storage. He said: "Saving these images requires billing for scanning.

In addition to price and portability, another big selling point is the combination of image acquisition and analysis on artificial intelligence. Becker engineers trained the software on a large data set of ultrasound images, teaching the distinction between high quality and low quality images of body parts like the heart. When the user takes the probe to the patient's chest for a heart exam, the iPhone display will help them find the right position. It also performs some simple analysis of the resulting ultrasound image, such as measuring the "ejection fraction", indicating the extent to which the heart draws blood.

At the Butterfly Network's New York City office, two members of the machine learning team generously provided a demonstration of this technology to IEEE Spectrum:

Artificial intelligence is what makes iQ a potential game changer in healthcare for developing countries and among wealthy consumers. Under global health conditions, the Butterfly Network envisages using the tool in rural health clinics because the staff there do not have the expertise of ultrasound; in the iQ guidance system, they can get a correct image or send it to an expert, or Use the system's instructions to calculate the next step.

Butterfly Network's chief medical officer, John Martin, said that in the United States and other prosperous regions of the world, this tool can enhance consumer abilities, ease anxiety, and reduce healthcare costs by eliminating many doctor visits. “I definitely think that ultrasound equipment will be in everyone's home,” Martin said. For example, if a child falls and complains of arm pain, parents can do a quick ultrasound examination of their bones so they can send the image to their pediatrician instead of running to the hospital.

It is reported that the FDA has not approved its home use, but Martin said that the approval route is well established. “When the first thermometer was made, when the first blood pressure cuff was made, they were only in the hospital,” he said. "Considering the defibrillator, it used to be in the hospital, but now in every mall and office -- people on the street can now give someone an electric shock. If the Butterfly Network has its way, It may become the best weapon for emergency ambulance and accelerate the development of the mobile medical environment.

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