Using an ultrasound sticker that adheres to the body like a bandage, pregnant women may one day be able to observe the development of their unborn children.
Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a stamp-sized wearable gadget.
It can collect live, continuous photos for up to 48 hours that reveal what is happening deep within the body.
They are currently refining an AI that can analyze the results and transmit them to a smartphone application.
Researchers anticipate that they will be available in stores and pharmacies for pregnant women to use once every week.
The patches, which are approximately 3 millimeters thick, could also be used to monitor cancer patients’ tumors and expedite disease detection and treatment.
Professor Xuanhe Zhao, a mechanical engineer at MIT who helped develop the technology, told MailOnline: ‘The ultrasound stickers might be used to image pregnant ladies.
To ensure safety, however, the imaging frequency should be lowered, such as once per week.
He stated, “We foresee a few patches adhering to various body regions.”
The patches would communicate with your mobile device, where AI algorithms would analyze photographs on demand.
We believe a new era of wearable imaging has begun. With a few patches on your body, it would be possible to view your interior organs.
He told: “The ultrasound stickers might be used to image pregnant women.”
To ensure safety, however, the imaging frequency should be lowered, such as once per week.
In a study published by Science, the stickers were evaluated.
Fifteen volunteers wore the stickers for 48 hours on various body areas including the neck, chest, belly, and arms.
During this time, individuals engaged in a variety of activities, including sitting and standing, jogging, cycling, and weightlifting.
The miniature plaster was able to demonstrate how the heart changes form during exercise and how the stomach expands and contracts as volunteers consume juice and transmit it through their system.
While some individuals lifted weights, the team was able to detect brilliant patterns in the underlying muscles that indicated transient muscular injury.
Ultrasounds are routinely utilized by technicians to display images of a developing fetus within the body, but their usage requires cumbersome expensive equipment and expertise.
Additionally, they require someone to continuously hold a probe, and the gel used to make a picture might dry out over time, meaning they cannot monitor organs for extended durations.
The experts at MIT assert that the new stickers will circumvent this problem by enclosing the gel in an airtight barrier, making them more useful for two-day observation of malignancies, heart failure, and hypertension.
While hospital medical imaging typically takes a few seconds, the stickers can monitor the patient for 48 hours.
Internal organs such as the heart, lungs, muscles, and blood arteries will be imaged in a “continuous, long-term” manner.
Adding an image dimension could potentially improve wearable devices, which presently only provide linear data such as body temperature and heart rate.
Sonar-like, ultrasounds typically function by delivering soundwaves through the body and monitoring when they echo back.
It requires a probe to transmit sound via a gel and into the body, and a transducer to create an image from the sound’s return.
Through a layer of soft gel that does not dry out, the new technique adheres a thin probe to the skin using a sticky layer.
A layer on top of the sending probe detects the returning sound waves.
As with conventional ultrasounds, it is now wired to a massive computer, but experts are researching technologies to make it wireless.
They are also creating an AI that would eliminate the need for cumbersome infrastructure and allow photographs to be transferred directly to smartphones.
