Current imaging technologies like MRI, CT scans and ultrasound provide valuable views inside the body, but each has drawbacks. MRIs require patients to remain still for minutes, CT scans expose patients to some radiation and ultrasound usually provides only two dimensional images.
Joshua Broder, MD, an emergency medicine physician at Duke, wasn't satisfied with that. A Duke Health article explains how he paired up with engineers, including two now at Stanford Medicine, Jeremy Dahl, PhD, assistant professor of radiology, and Carl Herickhoff, PhD, a research associate, to create a simple device that allows 2-D devices to produce 3-D images.
Broder demonstrates snapping the added parts on in the video above.
"We'd like to make ultrasound so accessible and easy that the patient could literally perform the exam themselves," he says in the video.
Duke and Stanford are pursuing clinical trials using the technology. The article explains that "some of the most promising uses could be when CT scans or MRIs are not available, in rural or developing areas, or when they are too risky." Broder adds:
Ultrasound is such a beautiful technology because it's inexpensive, it's portable and it's completely safe in every patient... And it's brought to the bedside and doesn't interfere with patient care.
Previously: Stanford otolaryngologist champions ultrasound imaging and Ultrasound has its day — and evangelists galore
Video courtesy of Duke Health
