Slashdot Mirror
Imaging Breakthrough "Sees" Lung Disease
Roland Piquepaille writes "According to BusinessWeek, an Israeli startup, aptly named Deep Breeze, has developed a high-tech replacement for the 200-year-old stethoscope. This noninvasive device can draw, in seconds, an image of your lungs by listening to its vibrations. The Vibration Response Imaging (VRI) system could already be used in Israel, Europe and South Korea. Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration approved its introduction in the US. But don't expect to see one of these systems used by your local physician anytime soon. This VRI system will carry a price tag of over $40K."
But is $40K a lot as far as medical devices cost? How much is the x-ray machine at the doctor's office, or the ultrasound equipment at the heart specialist?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
That really no where near the price of a MRI machine so I'm pretty sure that it is as capable as the article makes it sound than thats not that much to spend. Several hospitals in my area have spent 100+ million in renovations.
The real question is how often will this be used? Not every doctor is going to need this as, it seems, this is going to start out as a specialist item. Your local hospital may only have need for one of these things in the long run.
In any case this is a good step forward and I'm glad to hear about it...
Now, where did I put that pack of Camels???
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I can tell you that radiology/cardiology and a lot of the imaging modalities is really where hospitals make a lot of their bucks. I'm actually a medical consultant. While I don't work with the machines much at all, I work with getting properly trained staff out at the places. I get the impression that a lot of the machines are in the quarter to half million dollar range. I can tell you that an ultrasound technologist can make quite a few pretty pennies :) The good ones can get into the 6 figures easily annually. Hospitals rely on them so much that when they're short handed, they're willing to pay $50 to $100 dollars per hour for long extended periods (3-12 months at a time) to make sure they have someone running their machines.
Why, when there is an article about something visual, especially a revolutionary new visualization system, do they never show pictures.
I hate that.
If you are reporting on a neat visual thingy,... SHOW ME THE THINGY. Even a picture of the machine would be a plus, even if it looks exactly like an MRI or some other machine. I don't care if the picture may mean nothing to me. Put a little caption trying to explain it. It doesn't matter, show me SOMETHING.
Does anyone have a picture?
This should be criminal.
(the annoyed MBCook)
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
$40k for medical equiptment isn't bad. Compare it to the cost of a MRI machine, or even a 'low cost' (which is $100k-$200k) x-ray machine. Radiosurgery machines (for cancer) run $3-5 million. Having an accurate diagnosis for $40k is almost cheap by those standards.
TFA says that the price of the imaging modality will drop in the next few years with economies of scale and so forth. This is good, very good. It means that it'll make its way into the GP's practice soon and not just be in the hands of respiratory physicians and hospitals. But, honestly, look at things like this: TFA mentions that as far as replacing the stethoscope goes, it removes any sort of interpersonal bias between doctors in diagnosis. While this is just wonderful in respect to some esoteric diagnoses ie. whether you can *hear* a tiny small-cell carcinoma, but for the rest of us, I feel that a stethoscope, a quiet room and a competent doctor will suffice. The sounds of pneumonia, emphysema, pulmonary oedema, tuberculosis, bronchiole asthma etc. are all quite distinctive and as a medical student, I find it somewhat surprising that there can be any significant argument or doubt regarding the diagnosis of such patients. Heck, even if there was doubt, there are other elements of the presenting complaint (risk factors, family history, blood tests and plain old signs & symptoms) that can help doctors reach a definitive diagnosis. What I'm trying to say is, the old stuff works, its tried and true, and it's not easy to honestly miss pulmonary lesions. So, apart from being a novel visual toy (I know it's an instrument but how much fun is this?!) would it HONESTLY replace a $70 stethoscope and a head full of juicy knowledge brains? Me thinks nah :-p
Note that imaging with sound generated in the lungs naturally is apparently not possible because the source and frequency of the sound cannot be known in advance. The use of the word "Imaging" is apparently fraud.
The BusinessWeek article says, amazingly, begging the question, "Its sales prospects are not just hot air"
Notice that, at present, there is no period at the end of that sentence, suggesting that the article received little or no attention from an editor.
Slashdot has run several stories about companies that had products that they were supposedly trying to bring to market, but which, on close examination, apparently were just methods of collecting investor money, with no real hope of return.
Roland Piquepaille, the author of the Slashdot story, is apparently paid to get articles in publications an on blogs. There has never been any information, that I know of, about whether he pays someone at Slashdot or Slashdot's parent company. His Slashdot stories apparently never note Mr. Piquepaille's affiliations with the companies being discussed.
Slashdot has often been scientifically challenged. The Slashdot article The Car That Makes Its Own Fuel has a +5 moderated First Post that expresses the consensus of the comments on that story.