Robotics, AI key to faster cardiac ultrasound system under development

Robotics, AI key to faster cardiac ultrasound system under development Main Photo

17 Aug 2021


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A University of Alberta-based team is developing a system to improve the way heart conditions are diagnosed by blending robotics and artificial intelligence with existing cardiac ultrasound technology.

“Current echocardiography (heart ultrasound) is used for virtually all patients with cardiac symptoms but it has limitations. For example, it doesn’t typically capture the entire heart in one single scan,” said Kumaradevan Punithakumar, associate professor (research) of radiology and diagnostic imaging in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry.

“We want to make the process more streamlined, so instead of looking at multiple scans in different windows, we have the entire heart in a single display,” said Punithakumar, who is also operational and computational director of the Servier Virtual Cardiac Centre, an advanced visualization lab for cardiac imaging at the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute.

The new system, which is being refined and developed for commercialization with new funding from Alberta Innovates’ Accelerating Innovations into CarE (AICE), would allow more patients to get scans and receive treatment more quickly.

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