PolyCMUTs: a new ultrasound transducer technology for medical imaging

PolyCMUT：一种用于医学成像的新型超声换能器技术

• 批准号: 561566-2021
• 负责人: Rohling, RobertRN
• 金额: $ 12.75万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Idea to Innovation
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=751948
• 关键词: PolyCMUTs; new; ultrasound; transducer; technology

The ultrasound field is being disrupted by the advent of a new transducer technology. The traditional transducer technology is based on the piezoelectric principle to convert electricity into ultrasound and vice versa. This is a mature technology that has enabled many clinical applications for ultrasound making it the most frequently used medical imaging modality. Unfortunately, piezoelectric-based transducers are limited by the nature of these piezoelectric "crystals" meaning that even the newest smart-phone connected transducers are still hand-held, expensive and have low-volume manufacturing. Moreover, they need experts to perform manual operation and interpretation. The disruption is coming from CMUTs (Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasound Transducers) that replace the crystals with tiny microfabricated drums that are integrated tightly and made together with electronics on chips. CMUTs are disruptive because they offer huge advantages in cost through high-volume manufacturing but also advantages in quality and the ability to create affordable transducers suitable for 3D imaging. At UBC, we invented a highly innovative CMUT made from soft polymers, hence called polyCMUT. What is exciting is that our polyCMUTs have all these advantages plus they can be flexible, large, transparent, and an even better cost-performance ratio by using agile manufacturing facilities. These unique capabilities will be used in our first beachhead product: a new 3D imaging transducer that is both affordable and suitable for detecting many diseases and disorders. Adding to the disruption is the advent of AI to enhance the operation, analysis and decision making. The combination of cloud-connected polyCMUTs and AI can also open up ultrasound to new users and new applications. One long-term goal is improving breast cancer detection. We propose to effectively double the imaging capability of breast cancer imaging by adding our polyCMUT imaging to mammography within the same examination. This would improve cancer detection and patient outcomes. In general, the expanded use of ultrasound using our polyCMUT products will have an impact on the detection of multiple diseases and on the lives of many Canadians.

新的传感器技术的出现，超声波领域正在破坏。传统的传感器技术基于压电原理，将电力转换为超声波，反之亦然。这是一项成熟的技术，它使许多临床应用程序用于超声波化，使其成为最常用的医学成像方式。不幸的是，基于压电的传感器受这些压电“晶体”的性质的限制，这意味着即使是最新的智能手机连接的传感器，也仍然是手持式，昂贵且具有低量制造的。此外，他们需要专家来执行手动操作和解释。破坏来自CMUTS（电容性微机械超声传感器），这些cmuts用微小的微型制动鼓代替了晶体，这些滚筒紧密整合并与芯片上的电子设备一起制成。 CMUT是破坏性的，因为它们通过大量制造具有巨大的成本优势，并且在质量上也具有优势，并且能够创建适合3D成像的负担得起的传感器。在UBC，我们发明了由软聚合物制成的高度创新的CMUT，因此称为Polycmut。令人兴奋的是，我们的polycmut具有所有这些优势，而且它们可以使用敏捷的制造设施灵活，大，透明，并且具有更好的成本效法比率。这些独特的功能将用于我们的第一个Beachhead产品：一种新的3D成像传感器，既负担得起又适合检测许多疾病和疾病。 AI的出现是增强操作，分析和决策制定的出现。与云连接的polycmuts和AI的组合也可以为新用户和新应用程序打开超声波。一个长期目标是改善乳腺癌的检测。我们建议通过在同一检查中添加乳腺X线摄影中的多发成像来有效地使乳腺癌成像的成像能力增加一倍。这将改善癌症的检测和患者预后。一般而言，使用我们的Polycmut产品扩大超声的使用将对多种疾病的发现以及许多加拿大人的生活产生影响。