The Stanford-Ames portable echocardioscope - A case study in technology transfer

Abstract

The paper describes a lightweight portable battery-powered echocardioscope fabricated largely from readily available components. The transducer contains a piezoelectric crystal which acts as both an ultrasound pulse emitter and echo receiver, and the oscilloscope is of modular construction. The oscilloscope display can be produced in any of three different modes: A-mode, B-mode, and M-mode (time-motion) by sweeping the intensified points of light of the B-mode display vertically along the oscilloscope face. The resulting display can be photographed in a time exposure, thus providing a hardcopy record for the patient's chart or physician's records. The device is clinically validated on both normal subjects and patients by experienced echocardiographers.