Imaging chip offers 'flashlight' to blockage-seeking cardiologists

With its volumetric imaging, the new device could better guide surgeons working in the heart, and potentially allow more of patients’ clogged arteries to be cleared without major surgery.

The device integrates ultrasound transducers with processing electronics on a single 1.4mm silicon chip. On-chip processing of signals allows data from more than a hundred elements on the device to be transmitted using 13 cables, allowing it to easily travel through circuitous blood vessels. It is claimed the forward-looking images produced by the device would provide significantly more information than existing cross-sectional ultrasound.

Researchers have developed and tested a prototype able to provide image data at 60 frames per second, and plan next to conduct animal studies that could lead to commercialisation of the device.

‘Our device will allow doctors to see the whole volume that is in front of them within a blood vessel,’ said F. Levent Degertekin, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. ‘This will give cardiologists the equivalent of a flashlight so they can see blockages ahead of them in occluded arteries. It has the potential for reducing the amount of surgery that must be done to clear these vessels.’