Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have developed a miniature ultrasound system that could improve the accessibility of breast ultrasounds and enable earlier breast cancer detection.
The miniaturized ultrasound system consists of a small ultrasound probe (left) attached to an acquisition and processing module. [Image courtesy of Conformable Decoders Lab at the MIT Media Lab]
During a screening, the probe takes 3D images of the tissue and sends it to the motherboard for processing. The system connects to a laptop to reconstruct and view wide-angle 3D images in real time, according to a research study published by the team in Advanced Healthcare Materials.
Its small, portable design allows breast ultrasounds to be performed more often in nontraditional settings, like at home or in a doctor’s office.
“Everything is more compact and that can make it easier to be used in rural areas or for people who may have barriers to this kind of technology,” said Canan Dagdeviren, the MIT associate professor of media arts and sciences who was the study’s senior author.
Traditionally, ultrasound scans are conducted as a follow-up when a mammogram reveals an area of concern. Ultrasound machines for breast cancer detection are large and expensive, and require trained technicians to operate.
“You need skilled ultrasound technicians to use those machines, which is a major obstacle to getting ultrasound access to rural communities, or to developing countries where there aren’t as many skilled radiologists,” study co-author and MIT graduate student Shrihari Viswanath said.
Previously: MIT researchers build wearable ultrasound scanner for earlier breast cancer detection
Frequent screenings with ultrasound in people who are at high risk for developing breast cancer can help detect malignant tumors early. With this system, Dagdeviren said more tumors could potentially be detected earlier which increases the chances of successful treatment.
The system can image as deep as 15 cm into the tissue and image the entire breast from two or three locations, the researchers said. The images aren’t distorted, since the ultrasound device sits on top of the skin without pressing into the tissue like a typical ultrasound probe.
“With our technology, you can simply place [the system] gently on top of the tissue and it can visualize the cysts in their original location with their original sizes,” Dagdeviren said.
How it works
In the new system, MIT researchers developed a novel chirped data acquisition system (cDAQ) that consists of an ultrasound probe and a motherboard. It uses a convolutional optimally distributed array (CODA) geometry to reduce the number of processing elements from 1024 to 128, limiting the system’s complexity without sacrificing accuracy.
The probe contains an ultrasound array arranged in the shape of an empty square, a configuration that allows the array to take 3D images of the tissue [Image courtesy of Conformable Decoders Lab at the MIT Media Lab]
All the electronics used in the motherboard are commercially available. The system uses less power than traditional ultrasound machines, meaning it could be powered by a 5V battery or AC/DC adapter used to plug in small devices like portable speakers, making the system accessible to almost anyone, everywhere.
“Ultrasound imaging has long been confined to hospitals,” said lead author Md Osman Goni Nayeem, a former MIT postdoc. “To move ultrasound beyond the hospital setting, we reengineered the entire architecture, introducing a new ultrasound fabrication process, to make the technology both scalable and practical.”
How the concept was initially developed and what’s in its future
In 2023, Dagdeviren and her colleagues developed an array of ultrasound transducers incorporated in a flexible patch that can be attached to a bra, allowing the patient to move an ultrasound tracker along the patch and capture images of breast tissue from different angles.
The 2D images captured by the patch could be combined to generate a 3D reconstruction of the tissue, the researchers said there could be small gaps in the coverage and small abnormalities might be missed. But the array of transducers had to be connected to a traditional and costly refrigerator-sized processing machine to view the images.
Dagdeviren and her colleagues’ first wearable ultrasound scanner allowed the patient to move an ultrasound tracker along the patch and capture images of breast tissue from different angles. [Photo courtesy of MIT]
They tested the system on a 71-year-old woman with a history of breast cysts and found it could accurately image the cysts and create a 3D image of the tissue without gaps.
The research team is conducting a larger clinical trial at the MIT Center for Clinical and Translational Research and at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dagdeviren is also working on launching a company to commercialize the technology.
Since the system could be easily adapted for use in a doctor’s office, the researchers are working on creating a smaller data processing system, about the size of a fingernail, in hopes to enable the system to connect to a smartphone for image visualization.
They also plan to develop a smartphone app that would use an AI algorithm to guide patients to the best location to place the ultrasound probe.
Eventually, the researchers want to incorporate the technology into a wearable sensor that can be used at home.
