Radiologists and surgeons routinely look at a series of 2-D images and work to reimagine them in 3-D in order to make visual diagnoses, as well as to prepare for and execute surgeries. Now startup EchoPixel is looking to eliminate that process by taking volumetric images resulting from procedures such as MRIs, CT scans or breast tomosynthesis, and creating a holographic image that is interactive and can be viewed in real time during surgery.
The expectation is that this technology could be used to improve diagnostic and surgical accuracy, as well as to lighten the load for these healthcare practitioners who spend a considerable amount of their limited, valuable time making the mental transition from 2-D to 3-D.
 |
| Looking at kidney using the True 3D Viewer--Courtesy of EchoPixel |
EchoPixel spent most of last year focused on the medical educational applications of its True 3D Viewer. But now that it received FDA clearance for the system in January, it's advancing rapidly into the clinic.
"It would usually take about four hours to go through a full 2-D data set and sketch out on paper how those vessels would be placed across the chest of a patient. That's how they would go and start surgery on a newborn patient," EchoPixel founder and CTO Sergio Aguirre said in an interview with FierceMedicalDevices.
"We already have the data; we just don't have the right way to digest and leverage all the value they have in that image," Aguirre summed up.
The technology has been in at least a trio of clinical trials: one to improve colon imaging and diagnostics, another to create a map for pediatric cardiac surgery that can be superimposed over the real-time surgical image to guide it; and, finally, one to aid the placement of a shunt during liver surgery.
"We could identify up to 90% of vessels in the trial, reducing interpretation time by up to 40%. The radiologist is making a richer surgical plan that he can hand to a surgeon--that reduces surgical time from about four hours to two-and-a-half hours," Aguirre said.
 |
| EchoPixel CEO Ron Schilling |
The expectation is that this technology could save time and money, as well as improve the quality of patient care. Describing the colon imaging study, Schilling said "These lesions in the colon are slightly raised or embedded. It's difficult to see in 2-D and even with a colonoscopy. In an unblinded benchmark test, we improved visualization by 100%. We are bringing technology to bear in conjunction with a protocol to improve the clinical results and the time to do the study."
"We have improved the time to do a virtual colonoscopy from 30 to 40 minutes to about 8 minutes; we've improved the clinical and the time results both very significantly," Schilling continued regarding the trial conducted by Dr. Judy Yee at the University of California at San Francisco, where she is a professor and vice chair of radiology and biomedical imaging and at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, where she is chief of radiology.
EchoPixel has priced a complete True 3D System with a perpetual software license at about $70,000. It also sells it on a subscription basis for $20,000 per year and is interested in pricing the product on a pay-per-study basis as well to attract more private practice use.
The technology could also help improve radiologist accuracy, which is largely dependent on experience and how fresh the radiologist is to the task.
"Right now radiologists are asked to go through CT or MR images, thousands of images in many, many cases across the day," noted Aguirre. "They must solve the 3-D problem and then to solve the clinical problem they are exercising memory. Their performance comes down every 90 minutes or so. Because we are providing sensory inputs that are similar to the real world, that fatigue factor is minimized, if not completely eliminated, and the gap between experts and nonexperts is reduced."
- here is the release