Laser System Can Remotely Capture Images Inside Your Body

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have produced the first laser ultrasound images of humans, according to an MIT News report. The advancement is important because the technique they used may help remotely image and assess the health of infants, burn victims, and accident survivors in hard-to-reach places.
Conventional ultrasound requires contact with a patient’s body, and while it is generally coonsidered noninvasive, it may not be ideal in situations where the probe would have to touch burn victims, babies, or other patients with sensitive skin. The report also noted that ultrasound probe contact induces significant image variability, which is a major challenge in modern ultrasound imaging.
MIT engineers have come up with an alternative method that doesn’t require contact with the body to see inside a patient. The new laser ultrasound technique leverages an eye- and skin-safe laser system to remotely image the inside of a human body. When trained on a patient’s skin, one laser remotely generates sound waves that bounce through the body. A second laser remotely detects the reflected waves, which researchers then translate into an image similar to conventional ultrasound.
In a paper published by Nature in the journal Light: Science and Applications, the MIT team said they scanned the forearms of several volunteers and observed common tissue...

Source: MDDI - January 6, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: MDDI Staff Tags: Imaging R & D Source Type: news