Philips Offers Improved Ultrasound for Obese Patients

Barbara Kram

The rising prevalence of obesity in the U.S. and globally has challenged ultrasound systems to penetrate fatty tissue more effectively to obtain diagnostic views. Up to half of all abdominal ultrasound exams are conducted on large patients.

Fortunately, this technical challenge coincides with some cutting-edge R&D from Philips to develop a new type of crystal that can penetrate fatty tissue to reveal pathology beneath.

It's helpful to understand that ultrasound transducers use a piezoelectric material to deliver the ultrasound energy to the scanned tissue and convert resulting echoes into electrical signals. However, today's widely used crystal type, known as PZT, has its limitations, achieving only about 70% efficiency. A better type of piezocrystal has been discovered but has proven difficult to grow. Philips engineers have been working on this problem and made recent breakthroughs in both crystal growth and crystal properties.
source: DotMed News