Chip Advances Take Ultrasound Mobile

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- The patient would not respond. It was two hours after a heart attack, and his blood pressure was in free fall. Using a device the size of a Game Boy, doctors at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in New York discovered his heart was being compressed by pooling fluid and rushed him to surgery.

The quick assessment was made possible by a portable ultrasound machine from Siemens AG (SI) dubbed the P10, the smallest currently on the market. Such gadgets could become a vital tool in emergency medicine and perhaps even the stethoscope of the future, says Dr. Eyal Herzog, director of the cardiac care unit at St. Luke's, which is testing the P10.

source and complete article: CNN Money