Filtered by: Scitech
SciTech

New probe enables real-time 3D view inside heart, blood vessels


Doctors may soon be able to detect and prevent possible heart conditions earlier, after researchers developed a catheter-based device that provides real-time 3D imaging from inside the heart and coronary arteries and nearby blood vessels.
 
The Georgia Institute of Technology said this could potentially help surgeons working in the heart, and lead to the clearing of clogged arteries without major surgery.
 
“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,” said F. Levent Degertekin, a professor in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. 
 
Degertekin added the device "will allow doctors to see the whole volume that is in front of them within a blood vessel."
 
Also, he said that while doctors want to see what is going on inside the arteries and inside the heart, most devices today provide only cross-sectional images.
 
“If you have an artery that is totally blocked, for example, you need a system that tells you what’s in front of you. You need to see the front, back and sidewalls altogether. That kind of information is basically not available at this time,” he said.
 
In a news release, the institute said the researchers crammed ultrasound transducers with processing electronics on a silicon chip measuring a mere 1.4 mm.
 
"On-chip processing of signals allows data from more than a hundred elements on the device to be transmitted using just 13 tiny cables, permitting it to easily travel through circuitous blood vessels," it said.
 
Also, it said forward-looking images produced by the device would provide "significantly more information than existing cross-sectional ultrasound."
 
Details of the research were published online in the February 2014 issue of the journal IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control.
 
Research leading to the device development was supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), part of the National Institutes of Health.
 
Other members of the research team included Jennifer Hasler, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Mustafa Karaman, a professor at Istanbul Technical University; Coskun Tekes, a postdoctoral fellow in the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering; Gokce Gurun and Jaime Zahorian, recent graduates of Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Georgia Tech Ph.D. students Toby Xu and Sarp Satir.
 
A prototype being tested by the researchers can provide image data at 60 frames per second. It may be tested in animal studies before commercialization.
 
The device uses capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer (CMUT) arrays with front-end CMOS electronics technology to provide three-dimensional intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and intracardiac echography (ICE) images.
 
"When assembled, the donut-shaped array is just 1.5 millimeters in diameter, with a 430-micron center hole to accommodate a guide wire," the institute said.
 
Meanwhile, the array has power-saving circuitry that shuts down sensors when they are not needed. With this, the device can operate with just 20 milliwatts of power. Also, the ultrasound transducers operate at a frequency of 20 MHz.
 
“You want the most compact and flexible catheter possible. We could not do that without integrating the electronics and the imaging array on the same chip,” Degertekin said.
 
Degertekin said their future plans include developing a version of the device that could guide interventions in the heart under magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
 
"Other plans include further reducing the size of the device to place it on a 400-micron diameter guide wire," the institute said. — KDM, GMA News