Wearable Ultrasound Probe Enables User To See, Feel, And Do

The global market for ultrasound devices and services is sizeable at around $7 billion spent per year worldwide on machines and accessories. An estimated 430 million scans are performed annually on 450,000 million systems, and Sonivate Medical Inc., an Oregon-based start-up company, has its finger on the pulse of this burgeoning field with the SonicEye, an ultrasound imaging probe that is actually worn on the user’s finger. According to Sonivate president and CEO David Starr, the market for ultrasound probes alone is worth around $1.4 billion annually. Starr says one of the main advantages of the SonicEye probe is that it leverages innate human hand/eye coordination to provide both fine-motor positional control and exquisite spatial awareness of fingertip location with tactile feedback. “We have taken existing ultrasound transducer [aka probe] technology and miniaturized it and put a hole in the middle so it can be worn on the finger. It has the same image quality and imaging characteristics as traditional ultrasound transducers, but by changing the form it facilitates greater ease of use and is much easier and more intuitive to learn how to use,” he says.

The probe, which received FDA clearance in 2012, supports applications in ultrasound-guided needle procedures including vascular access, needle aspiration, and nerve blocks, among other things. It is also being developed...