Think of EchoPixel technology is much like InnerSpace but instead of actually minimizing scientists and shooting them into your body to find disease, the medical imaging startup lets doctors pinpoint problem areas from CT, MRI, and ultrasound scans using 3D glasses and a special display.
Most of the doctors view CT scan in 2D, it means that the doctors are unable to see in and around all the details of a human body, that makes it harder for them to find the exact problem. Some even employ bringing the hand-drawn sketches into the operating room for getting a solution on board. Sergio Aguirre, the EchoPixel‘s CTO states that “It’s really a shame that doctors are still using the same 2D images designed in 1880.”
On the other hand, with EchoPixel and 3D glasses, the internal organs pop off the screen like holograms so that the doctors can virtually examine the patient from any angle they want. The EchoPixel could radically help to improve healthcare while reducing time and costs for hospitals as well as the patients. This is also one of the most promising paths that virtual reality is making in the healthcare industry.
EchoPixel is achieving this technological feat by employing the 300 million 3D radiology scans that are being performed in the US each year. But rather flattening them on a 2D screen, it is a real-time interactive 3D imaging system that allows the doctors to peer every neuron, corner, and crevice of a human body.
The information can later be tailored from the specific procedures, and the doctors are able to zoom in and pull out the thing that doesn’t seem to be right from the human body’s scan, and later they can also get a 3D image print to have a working model for further study. For example, it would be quite easy for the doctors to find a weird bump or lesion on a human’s intestines this makes it easier to find the problem and examine as well.
This ultimate EchoPixel‘s 3D tech ability of virtually enlarging even the tiniest parts of the human body is unexpectedly helpful in treating the newborns. According to the clinical studies so far, the doctors have discovered up to 90 percent more congenital heart defects amongst the newborns in none less than 40 percent less time. It’s also much quicker to size medical devices like stents because doctors can examine in 3D the place they’ll go. One of the best trials showed up that the sizing time reduced from 40 minutes to just 2.
Even when EchoPixel is not like the Vive and Oculus, it is listed to the tech as an interactive VR. In fact, the tech is much more convenient than other technologies discovered so far. Instead of having a strap to on and off a Virtual Reality headset just in the middle of a procedure, the doctors can just look to the sides and glance at the 3D image they are working on.
The ultimate startup has so far raised to approximately $5.8 million seed round and is also now selling a three-year subscription for $25,000 a year. Other companies in the space include Surgical Theater and RealView.
EchoPixel has already received its go-ahead from the FDA and is now seeking approvals from Europe and Asia. Over the time, the doctors can let the robots do the incisions while they control them via EchoPixel a few feet away.
One of the doctors has been interviewed who is now using the product, UCSF’s Dr. Judy Yee, who’s been able to catch potentially cancerous lesions in the gut with EchoPixel.