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A new transducer could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners

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Re: A new transducer could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners

#21

Post by snops »

lnsru wrote: post #18

One still needs expensive FPGA or DSP for beamforming in decent ultrasound machine. Nothing for 100$. Maybe some single channel sensor, but I also doubt that after FDA approval price will stay in 100$ range. Plus I am worried about long time stability of polymers. Moisture or UV or mechanical load can alter polymer’s structure.

Moore's law will take care of the processing cost nicely, especially as more commodity processors become powerful enough to handle it.

The ADCs and other analog stuff might be more of a hurdle, the design of them is quite hard, they aren't able to take advantages of smaller transistors as well, and competition in the space is decreasing as semiconductor companies keep merging (e.g. Analog Devices and Linear Technologies).

Re: A new transducer could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners

#22

Post by 21 »

jurassic wrote: post #14

I hope this reaches hospitals and patients soon. I recently had to pay ~$1k for a transvaginal ultrasound at Stanford Hospital. That is what I paid AFTER insurance, I think the hospital billed the insurance company another $5k or so. Absolute highway robbery, and prohibitive for many people in need of these assessments.

> A pelvic ultrasound typically is covered by health insurance when ordered by a doctor for diagnosis of a problem. For patients covered by health insurance, out-of-pocket costs typically consist of a copay of $10-$50 or more, or coinsurance of 10%-50% or more.

> For patients not covered by health insurance, the cost of a pelvic ultrasound typically varies by provider and geographic region. The typical cost range is $250-$1,100, with a national average cost of $525, according to NewChoiceHealth.com[1] . For example, Concierge Medicine[2] in California charges $275 for a pelvic ultrasound

https://health.costhelper.com/pelvic-ultrasounds.html

Re: A new transducer could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners

#23

Post by namibj »

snops wrote: post #21
lnsru wrote: post #18

One still needs expensive FPGA or DSP for beamforming in decent ultrasound machine. Nothing for 100$. Maybe some single channel sensor, but I also doubt that after FDA approval price will stay in 100$ range. Plus I am worried about long time stability of polymers. Moisture or UV or mechanical load can alter polymer’s structure.

Moore's law will take care of the processing cost nicely, especially as more commodity processors become powerful enough to handle it. The ADCs and other analog stuff might be more of a hurdle, the design of them is quite hard, they aren't able to take advantages of smaller transistors as well, and competition in the space is decreasing as semiconductor companies keep merging (e.g. Analog Devices and Linear Technolog…

At these low frequencies very simple oversampling Delta-Sigma ADCs work well, considering the sample rate is in the low 3-digit MHz range at most, which can easily be processed by even an 15$ FPGA that has SerDes suitable for USB3 or PCIe2 [0]. Considering you can just shift the noise out of the frequency of your ultrasound with the correct averaging filter in the FPGA to convert the 1-bit high sample rate to many-bit passband (one might want to fold the quadrature demodulator for RX phase sensitivity into this filter to save on comnpute). It would basically be a many-channel, fixed frequency (by software configuration only) RX SDR.

[0]: https://www.mouser.de/ProductDetail/Lattice/LFE5UM5G-25F-8MG...

Re: A new transducer could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners

#24

Post by namibj »

lostlogin wrote: post #20
ChuckMcM wrote: post #3

Ok, that is just awesome. There are a ton of uses for low cost ultrasound from trauma care to package inspection.

Package inspection? As in parcels? If so, how do they get an acoustic window?

X-ray/CT is much more useful for these.

Re: A new transducer could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners

#25

Post by [deleted] »

snops wrote: post #21
lnsru wrote: post #18

One still needs expensive FPGA or DSP for beamforming in decent ultrasound machine. Nothing for 100$. Maybe some single channel sensor, but I also doubt that after FDA approval price will stay in 100$ range. Plus I am worried about long time stability of polymers. Moisture or UV or mechanical load can alter polymer’s structure.

Moore's law will take care of the processing cost nicely, especially as more commodity processors become powerful enough to handle it. The ADCs and other analog stuff might be more of a hurdle, the design of them is quite hard, they aren't able to take advantages of smaller transistors as well, and competition in the space is decreasing as semiconductor companies keep merging (e.g. Analog Devices and Linear Technolog…

[deleted]

Re: A new transducer could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners

#26

Post by bleke »

lnsru wrote: post #18

One still needs expensive FPGA or DSP for beamforming in decent ultrasound machine. Nothing for 100$. Maybe some single channel sensor, but I also doubt that after FDA approval price will stay in 100$ range. Plus I am worried about long time stability of polymers. Moisture or UV or mechanical load can alter polymer’s structure.

Beamforming is cheap, for sectorial scan phone cpu can easily handle it, of course it will not be all big HQ image, but for initial scan is enough, but ADC with pulse generator - that one is expensive, for decent quality digital steering you need for example minimum 16 channel adc in mhz range and that one is not cheap. If you think it cheap go and google 128 channel ADC plus 128 pulse generators with protection circuit (i know somebody says overkill, but for ndt is pretty norm)

ndt - non destructive testing

Re: A new transducer could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners

#27

Post by lnsru »

bleke wrote: post #26
lnsru wrote: post #18

One still needs expensive FPGA or DSP for beamforming in decent ultrasound machine. Nothing for 100$. Maybe some single channel sensor, but I also doubt that after FDA approval price will stay in 100$ range. Plus I am worried about long time stability of polymers. Moisture or UV or mechanical load can alter polymer’s structure.

Beamforming is cheap, for sectorial scan phone cpu can easily handle it, of course it will not be all big HQ image, but for initial scan is enough, but ADC with pulse generator - that one is expensive, for decent quality digital steering you need for example minimum 16 channel adc in mhz range and that one is not cheap. If you think it cheap go and google 128 channel ADC plus 128 pulse generators with protection circ…

Googled it. DDC1128ZKLT ADC costs 212€ a piece, but can sample at 6.25 kS/s what is way too low for this application. 8 fast 16 channel ADCs cost a fortune. They also require at least one FPGA with high pin count and these aren’t cheap either. My conclusion: decent ultrasound scanner can’t be cheap from bill of materials perspective alone.

Re: A new transducer could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners

#28

Post by tecleandor »

noddy1 wrote: post #11
dairychris wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would too, for the same reason and for other “paravet” diagnostic work on my unit. That said, in cattle I found (with a bit of vet coaching) it wasn’t hard to recognise follicles, distinguish from (and gauge size of) a corpus luteum, etc by manual palpation, at least for someone who AIs reasonably regularly anyway. Our vets seem no less accurate this way than with their expensive heads-up toy! (I doubt I’m as accur…

you can get chinese vet grade USS machines for ~$500

Out of curiosity (and some docs I'm writing) :

Any brand or model you can tell me?

That's price bought in the US or sourced in China via AliExpress or similar?

Re: A new transducer could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners

#29

Post by zaroth »

21 wrote: post #22
jurassic wrote: post #14

I hope this reaches hospitals and patients soon. I recently had to pay ~$1k for a transvaginal ultrasound at Stanford Hospital. That is what I paid AFTER insurance, I think the hospital billed the insurance company another $5k or so. Absolute highway robbery, and prohibitive for many people in need of these assessments.

> A pelvic ultrasound typically is covered by health insurance when ordered by a doctor for diagnosis of a problem. For patients covered by health insurance, out-of-pocket costs typically consist of a copay of $10-$50 or more, or coinsurance of 10%-50% or more. > For patients not covered by health insurance, the cost of a pelvic ultrasound typically varies by provider and geographic region. The typical cost range is…

> ... Stanford Hospital ...

The times I’ve used them, the original bill was so outrageous I fumed for days.

Insurance paid ~$15K and they billed me for my entire OOP max for the year ($7,500) for a service that cost about $400 tops to provide.

Contested the bill and they do a medical review of the coding. They had billed as “intensive care” the administration of a single shot and a standard blood count.

They actually came back and claimed the coding was correct! Kept fighting it for about 6 months and they ended up dropping the entire thing at no cost. But they still got to keep the insurance payout.

Just another form of price gouging / variable pricing which should be illegal.

Re: A new transducer could dramatically lower the cost of ultrasound scanners

#30

Post by 21 »

zaroth wrote: post #29
21 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A pelvic ultrasound typically is covered by health insurance when ordered by a doctor for diagnosis of a problem. For patients covered by health insurance, out-of-pocket costs typically consist of a copay of $10-$50 or more, or coinsurance of 10%-50% or more. > For patients not covered by health insurance, the cost of a pelvic ultrasound typically varies by provider and geographic region. The typical cost range is…

> ... Stanford Hospital ... The times I’ve used them, the original bill was so outrageous I fumed for days. Insurance paid ~$15K and they billed me for my entire OOP max for the year ($7,500) for a service that cost about $400 tops to provide. Contested the bill and they do a medical review of the coding. They had billed as “intensive care” the administration of a single shot and a standard blood count. They actually…

I was pointing out that grandparent didn't shop around. Convenience always has a cost.

And in US, it's always worth asking for the uninsured price too. When you don't use your insurance, the medical providers compete against themselves and you get market price. Of course, insurance tries very hard to prevent you from bypassing them.

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