MIT Designs Ultrasound Stickers That Peer Into Your Body When You’re Out & About

If you’ve ever been at the hospital for an X-ray, you’ll have seen how bulky the specialized imaging equipment is. Many a time, patients are also required to make the long trek down to a doctor’s office for a procedure that just takes minutes. 

Now, a new innovation by engineers at MIT could turn ultrasound imaging on its head, with a wearable “sticker” that could become as accessible as buying a pack of adhesive bandages at the pharmacy. 

The stamp-sized device simply adheres to skin, and can provide continuous ultrasound imaging—which is safe and non-invasive—of a patient’s internal organs, including one’s heart and hearts, for 48 hours. 

During a trial, when researchers applied the stickers to volunteers, they were able to capture live, high-resolution images of the patients’ major blood vessels, and even organs as deep in the body as the stomach. 

Throughout the experiment, the sticker maintained strong adhesion, and was able to capture the subtle changes that occurred in the organs as volunteers were asked to sit, stand, jog, and even ride a bike. 

While the current iteration of the device requires it to be connected to instruments that translate the ultrasound waves into viewable images, and isn’t quite at the simplicity of a bandage just yet, the engineers still believe it could have immediate uses in the medical space.

For example, the stamps may be used in a similar fashion to heart-monitoring EKG stickers in hospitals, and help constantly monitor patients’ internal organs for an extended period of time without the help of a technician. 

The team’s eventual goal would be for the device to be able to work wirelessly, in hopes that the stickers could become wearables that will allow patients to capture their own ultrasound images from the comfort of their homes.

“We envision a few patches adhere to different locations on the body, and the patches would communicate with your cellphone, where AI algorithms would analyze the images on demand,” explained Xuanhe Zhao, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT.

“We believe we’ve opened a new era of wearable imaging: with a few patches on your body, you could see your internal organs.” 

[via The Guardian and MIT, cover image via MIT]