Many potential heart patients that are referred to specialists, turn out not to need specialist care. If general practitioners (GPs) could use handheld ultrasound devices with built-in diagnostic tools, could this improve patient outcome and reduce cost for the health services?
Coronary heart disease is a condition where the heart muscle (myocardium) does not receive enough oxygen and nutrients due to obstruction of blood flow in the heart’s blood vessels, known as the coronary arteries. It is therefore important to investigate the blood flow in these vessels. However, it is challenging to obtain accurate measurements due to the combination of poor blood flow, the constant movement of the heart throughout the cardiac cycle, and surrounding tissue causing noise signals.
Artificial intelligence can now help clinicians by automatically measuring the heart in ultrasound images. This can save time and may in the future enable inexperienced users to perform accurate measurements of the heart.
Making good digital ultrasound probes is extremely challenging because of the constrained amount of power that can be used. If significantly more than a couple of watts are consumed, the probe gets too hot to be allowed to touch your skin.
Increased availability of ultrasound devices is great news, but it also triggers a range of new challenges. At CIUS we believe modern machine learning methods, such as deep learning, can provide necessary solutions.
Today, second harmonic imaging is a preferred ultrasound imaging modality, mainly due to its ability to improve image quality by suppressing undesired acoustic reverberations. This imaging modality improves the diagnostics for different medical applications, and most of the cardiac ultrasound scanners in the hospitals use this method. We have established an experimental measurement system to measure, manipulate, and optimize excitation waveforms, and one of the goals is to reduce the undesired transmitted signal.
Gliomas are the most common primary brain tumors in adults with an incidence of around 250 cases per year in Norway. The outcome is poor, and the diagnostic accuracy is essential to estimate overall prognosis and to plan the best treatment for the patient. Can a hybrid PET/MRI system improve the diagnostic accuracy and treatment planning for this patient group?
By Svein-Erik Måsøy, Industry liaison and researcher in CIUS – Centre for Innovative Ultrasound Solutions Then watch NRK2 Saturday January 27th at 5.55 pm…
Today, a significant part of the oceans remains coarsely mapped. Some specific areas like the continental shelves will require high-resolution surveys. This represents a very long and expensive task that will keep scientist busy for several decades. A way to reduce costs and time could be to improve the efficiency of current surveys. We are trying to do this by sending more signals in the water at the same time.
The Multi-beam echo sounder is recognized as one of the most efficient and reliable tool for seabed mapping. Applications range from regional mapping of the seabed for geological surveys to the inspection of man-made objects such as pipelines or ship wrecks.
By Antoine Blachet, PhD Candidate, CIUS – Centre for Innovative Ultrasound Solutions.
Given that cardiovascular related diseases are the most probable cause of death globally, according to WHO, we believe that more information regarding blood behaviour can help the doctors make better diagnosis at an earlier stage. But how can you measure these properties inside the heart, behind the ribs, under the skin, without moving the patients from their bed?
By Morten Smedsrud Wigen, PhD Candidate, Department of Circulation and Medical Imaging and CIUS – Centre for Innovative Ultrasound Solutions.