from the I-saw-what-you-did-there,-and-in-there dept.
AnonTechie writes:
"Scientific studies of selfies have yielded interesting insights on personalities, gender differences, and national moods, but scientist F. Levent Degertekin has invented a new camera that can provide high-definition, 3-D images of your innards.
This "camera" uses ultrasound imaging techniques to create real-time, volumetric images of occlusions in arteries, but it's built more like a miniature drum cymbal than a SLR. A donut-shaped silicon chip with a 1.5 millimeter diameter and 460 micron hole in the center houses sensing and transmitting circuitry and serves as the base of the diminutive device. A thin film on top of it flutters 0.00005 of a millimeter, creating sound waves which are captured by an array of 100 sensors on the chip, processed, and transmitted to an external video monitor at a rate of 60 frames per second via 13 gossamer cables that are threaded through a catheter.
While impressive technically, the real goal is to make cardiac surgery more efficient and accessible to a wider variety of patients. Open heart surgery isn't viable for many senior citizens due to the invasive surgical techniques that are commonly employed, but this tool could help reduce the trauma associated with the intervention."
(Score: 5, Funny) by Nerdfest on Wednesday March 19 2014, @06:54PM
They had me up until the word "catheter".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday March 19 2014, @07:02PM
Currently if you want to scope out the inside of an engine cylinder you pretty much need to pull a plug and stick a borescope in. But this 1 mm thing is small enough you could probably thread it in past a valve. Which I guess is perfectly useful anyway because now you can inspect the valves before entering the cylinder.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday March 19 2014, @07:18PM
Why bother if you're going to charges for new valves anyway? At least that's what all mechanics I know do...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 19 2014, @07:46PM
Ah that is a good idea too. No I was thinking of yet another continuous emissions test type thing. On a little arm it extends in and takes a look thru every open valve each time the engine shuts off or whatever. And phones home to big brother if there's carbon deposits or whatever.
Obviously this is an application for when the device is $5 not $5M a piece.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 11 2014, @01:06PM
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(Score: 5, Informative) by Dunbal on Wednesday March 19 2014, @07:29PM
As a physician I am not sure this device would be any use in the situation TFA envisions it to be used. We have no shortage of non invasive techniques to image coronary arteries nowadays, from 3D helicoidal computer tomography which is absolutely non invasive, to trans-esophageal ultrasound, to fluoroscopy of the heart during a standard cardiac catheterization with contrast medium. To be honest the cardiac interventionist really couldn't care all that much about the size of the plaque, what matters is where the filling defect is, how bad it is, and how it's affecting the heart. That is something that contrast medium does very well, you can actually see where the blockage is and also which areas of the heart are suffering from reduced blood flow.
Where I DO see this being useful however is in patients (usually elderly patients) who have chronic kidney problems and cannot tolerate contrast medium. Unfortunately constrast is quite toxic to the kidneys and the longer it stays in the body the more kidney damage it does. A young (40-ish) otherwise healthy heart patient can manage a huge dose of contrast medium - enough to image all the coronary arteries very well - without incident. But a 70 year old diabetic... no. We can't kill patients to cure them, either. So alternative methods of imaging to let the interventionist know when he's over a plaque and where to install the stent, for example, would be extremely useful.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Geotti on Thursday March 20 2014, @01:54AM
Could you shed some light on why this would not be useful during an operation? Last I heard, the imaging techniques you suggest (save for the echocardiogram) are not providing a live image feed of the patient on the table.
As far as I understand, this provides imagery from the front edge of the catheter that is being inserted to deliver a stent [wikipedia.org].
Here's the Georgia-Tech link [gatech.edu] and here's the (paywalled) paper [ieee.org].
(Score: 2) by clone141166 on Thursday March 20 2014, @02:25AM
It was my understanding that both Computed Tomography and Fluoroscopy imaging require fairly high exposure to ionising radiation (x-rays); much more than that required to produce a standard, single radiograph image. Whereas this camera is using ultrasound (sound waves; non-ionising).
Isn't it preferable to minimise patient exposure to ionising radiation wherever possible? So while it might do the same thing as existing imaging technologies, it is potentially safer than many of them (as you also pointed out with respect to the use of contrast media on 70 year old diabetic patients being contraindicative).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by chewbacon on Thursday March 20 2014, @04:53AM
I work in an EP lab and we use intracardiac echo (ICE) to build 3D maps of heart structures, usually the left atrium to minimize fluoro time. We used to use CT scans and contrast to build the 3D model, but this means even less radiation dosing for the patient. It's a massive catheter (11fr, a little smaller than a drinking straw albeit it has a lot of bells and whistles compared to other ICE caths) in a vein and it is not the prettiest images to look at even from about as close to the coronaries as you can get. So the tech maybe on its way, but it has a way to go. Until then, we routinely pump plenty of old folks with sluggish kidney function full of contrast and they do just fine. The rationale is: yes, you could go into contrast induced renal failure, however we take action to prevent it and it is curable in many case. However, if you have a critical blockage you will have a heart attack and potentially die.
(Score: 4, Informative) by mmcmonster on Thursday March 20 2014, @09:57AM
As an interventional cardiologist, I would see some limited use of this device.
This is basically a form of Intravascular Ultrasound (IVUS). IVUS has existed for at least 15 years now and has gotten better over that time period. 1.5mm is still a bit big to put on a catheter, but it is doable.
The benefit of this over standard IVUS is that it appears to be "forward looking", in that it will image plaque in the arteries that it doesn't have to cross. The benefit of this is that the bulk of an IVUS catheter can sometimes disrupt the plaque as it's crossing it. The downside of this catheter is that the mainstream producers of these catheters (Volcano and Boston Scientific are the two that come to mind) know this and have created very low profile devices that minimize the risk of plaque disruption.
Interventional cardiology has a lot of tools such as this which are cool to use and have very pretty pictures. A similar device that comes to mind is Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT), which produces beautiful images either in 2D or 3D. The problem is that it gives us so much added detail compared to IVUS that we're not sure what added benefit that detail provides. (ie: The artery looks fine on IVUS so we leave it alone. OCT shows a microtear a couple millimeters long. Based on IVUS we would have left it alone and probably would have been correct in doing so. Do we have to treat it now that we did OCT imaging?)
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Wednesday March 19 2014, @10:14PM
For using the word "Innards" in the title. My farmer relatives would be impressed.
Now, for the trophy, can we expect "gizzard?"
(Score: 4, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday March 20 2014, @08:54AM
Now I can predict the future in entrails without killing the chicken!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by Boxzy on Thursday March 20 2014, @11:03AM
TSA. Installing this in 5 million locations in 3.. 2.. 1..
Go green, Go Soylent.