Stickers on the skin that allow you to see inside the body

Ultrasound is a safe, non-invasive window into the functioning of the body, providing doctors with live images of a patient’s internal organs. To capture these images, qualified technicians handle ultrasonic instruments to direct the sound waves towards the desired area inside the patient’s body. These waves are reflected and the result allows high-resolution images of the organ or tissue of interest, such as the heart or lungs, to be generated.

Currently, generating ultrasound images requires bulky and specialized equipment that is only available in hospitals and doctor’s offices. But a new design, by engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, could make this technology as easy to acquire, transport and use as the plasters we buy at the pharmacy to cover small skin wounds. .

The new design is based on a unique ultrasound sticker, a postage-stamp-sized device that adheres to the skin and can provide continuous ultrasound images of internal organs for 48 hours.

The team of Xuanhe Zhao, Chonghe Wang, Xiaoyu Chen and others applied such stickers to volunteers and found that the devices produced live, high-resolution images of major blood vessels as well as organs, even the deepest ones. such as the heart, lungs, and stomach.

In tests, the stickers maintained a strong adhesion and picked up changes in the organs below while the volunteers performed various activities, including sitting, standing, running and cycling.

MIT engineers have designed an adhesive patch, like a sticker, that obtains intracorporeal images from the external point on the skin where it has been stuck. The postage-stamp-sized device can provide continuous ultrasound images of internal organs for 48 hours. (Image: Felice Frankel. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

The current design requires connecting the stickers to instruments that translate the reflected sound waves into images. The researchers note that even in their current form, the stickers could have immediate applications. For example, the devices could be applied to patients admitted to hospitals, similar to sticky patches used for EKGs, generating continuous images of internal organs without the need for a technician to hold a probe in place. site for long periods of time.

If the devices can be made to work wirelessly (a goal the team is currently working on), the ultrasonic stickers could become wearable devices that patients could take home from the doctor’s office or even buy at a pharmacy.

Zhao and his colleagues expose the technical details of their device in the academic journal Science, under the title “Bioadhesive Ultrasound for Long-term Continuous Imaging of Diverse Organs.” (Font: NCYT by Amazings)