Image Courtesy : www.mit.edu

With the creation of stamp-sized ultrasound stickers, scientists believe they have opened the door to a new era of wearable imaging, which can show live pictures of our internal organs. Regular ultrasounds need specialized and bulky equipment, only available in GP surgeries and hospitals. But the new design could make the technology as wearable and accessible as buying plasters at a pharmacy. The engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are responsible for creating the pioneering health technology that provides you the images of the inside of our bodies continuously for 48 hours.

According to the current form, the stickers must be connected to devices that translate the reflected sound waves into images. The engineers are also trying to make this device wireless which means people could observe their unborn babies in real-time on their phone screens.

A professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, Xuanhe Zhao, explained that they visualize a few patches stuck to diverse locations on the body. The patches or stickers would intercommunicate with your cell phone, where AI algorithms would study the images on demand.

According to the engineers, the stickers could have an instantaneous influence in their current form also. For example, they could be applied to various hospital patients and continuously provide images of internal organs without any technician holding a probe in place for long periods. According to the journal Science, engineers tested the patch on volunteers who performed activities such as weight lifting, jogging, drinking fluids, and cycling. As a result, the stickers stuck well, and the devices delivered high-quality live images of major blood vessels and deeper organs such as lungs, stomach, and heart. For example, the images displayed the changing diameter of the blood vessel and represented the minute details of deeper organs, including the changes in the shape of the heart as volunteers exerted during exercise.

An MIT graduate student, Chong Wang, stated that this collaboration allows the device to fit the skin while maintaining the relative location of transducers to generate clear and more precise images.

The team is also originating software algorithms based on artificial intelligence that can analyze and diagnose sticker images. Professor Zhao also suggested that patients and consumers both can purchase these stickers. Professor Zhao also added that they imagine they could have a box of stickers, each designed to image a different part of the body, and they believe this represents a breakthrough in wearable devices and medical imaging.