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18 HEALTH AND LABORATORY MAGAZINE

MIT ENGINEERS DEVELOP

STICKERS THAT CAN SEE

INSIDE THE BODY

New stamp-sized ultrasound adhesives produce clear
images of heart, lungs, and other internal organs.

Ultrasound imaging is maintained a strong adhe- images on demand,” says ble array of tiny ultrasound layers of elastomer that
a safe and noninvasive sion and captured changes the study’s senior author, transducers, the idea being encapsulate a middle layer
window into the body’s in underlying organs as Xuanhe Zhao, professor that such a device would of solid hydrogel, a mostly
workings, providing clini- volunteers performed of mechanical engineering stretch and conform with a water-based material that
cians with live images of a various activities, including and civil and environmental patient’s body. easily transmits sound
patient’s internal organs. sitting, standing, jogging, engineering at MIT. “We waves. Unlike traditional
To capture these images, and biking. believe we’ve opened a But these experimental ultrasound gels, the MIT
trained technicians ma- new era of wearable imag- designs have produced team’s hydrogel is elastic
nipulate ultrasound wands The current design requires ing: With a few patches on low-resolution images, in and stretchy.
and probes to direct sound connecting the stickers to your body, you could see part due to their stretch:
waves into the body. These instruments that trans- your internal organs.” In moving with the body, “The elastomer prevents
waves reflect back out to late the reflected sound transducers shift location dehydration of hydrogel,”
produce high-resolution waves into images. The A STICKY ISSUE relative to each other, dis- says Chen, an MIT post-
images of a patient’s heart, researchers point out that torting the resulting image. doc. “Only when hydrogel
lungs, and other deep even in their current form, To image with ultrasound, is highly hydrated can
organs. the stickers could have a technician first applies “Wearable ultrasound im- acoustic waves pene-
immediate applications: a liquid gel to a patient’s aging tool would have huge trate effectively and give
Currently, ultrasound imag- For instance, the devic- skin, which acts to transmit potential in the future of high-resolution imaging of
ing requires bulky and spe- es could be applied to ultrasound waves. A probe, clinical diagnosis. However, internal organs.”
cialized equipment avail- patients in the hospital, or transducer, is then the resolution and imaging
able only in hospitals and similar to heart-monitoring pressed against the gel, duration of existing ultra- The bottom elastomer
doctor’s offices. But a new EKG stickers, and could sending sound waves into sound patches is relatively layer is designed to stick
design by MIT engineers continuously image internal the body that echo off in- low, and they cannot image to skin, while the top layer
might make the technology organs without requiring a ternal structures and back deep organs,” says Chong- adheres to a rigid array
as wearable and accessi- technician to hold a probe to the probe, where the he Wang, who is an MIT of transducers that the
ble as buying Band-Aids at in place for long periods of echoed signals are trans- graduate student. team also designed and
the pharmacy. time. lated into visual images. fabricated. The entire ul-
AN INSIDE LOOK trasound sticker measures
In a paper appearing today If the devices can be made For patients who require about 2 square centime-
in Science, the engineers to operate wirelessly — a long periods of imag- The MIT team’s new ultra- ters across, and 3 millime-
present the design for a goal the team is currently ing, some hospitals offer sound sticker produces ters thick — about the area
new ultrasound sticker — a working toward — the ul- probes affixed to robot- higher resolution images of a postage stamp.
stamp-sized device that trasound stickers could be ic arms that can hold a over a longer duration by
sticks to skin and can pro- made into wearable imag- transducer in place without pairing a stretchy adhesive The researchers ran the
vide continuous ultrasound ing products that patients tiring, but the liquid ultra- layer with a rigid array of ultrasound sticker through
imaging of internal organs could take home from a sound gel flows away and transducers. “This combi- a battery of tests with
for 48 hours. doctor’s office or even buy dries out over time, inter- nation enables the device healthy volunteers, who
at a pharmacy. rupting long-term imaging. to conform to the skin while wore the stickers on vari-
The researchers applied maintaining the relative ous parts of their bodies,
the stickers to volunteers “We envision a few patch- In recent years, research- location of transducers to including the neck, chest,
and showed the devices es adhered to different ers have explored designs generate clearer and more abdomen, and arms. The
produced live, high-resolu- locations on the body, for stretchable ultrasound precise images.” Wang stickers stayed attached
tion images of major blood and the patches would probes that would pro- says. to their skin, and produced
vessels and deeper organs communicate with your vide portable, low-profile clear images of under-
such as the heart, lungs, cellphone, where AI algo- imaging of internal organs. The device’s adhesive lying structures for up to
and stomach. The stickers rithms would analyze the These designs gave a flexi- layer is made from two thin 48 hours. During this time,