New Developments at UTMB Medical Ultrasound Program

Archived: July 29, 2004
| UTMB | | Ultrasound Program | | Grant Proposals | | TSGC Research Report |


A Superior Ultrasound Imager
The NASA RA (1996) grant was not funded. The rationale for not awarding the grant is not clear and is under review. In the interim, Ron Daigle, Ph.D., Technical Director of Atlantis Diagnostics, a Division of ATL, Inc., brought his PC based, software driven commercial medical ultrasound device (HDI 1000) to the market (Feb. 1997). Not only is it PC based, but it is a commercial device with the capability of the top of the line ultrasound products on the market and Dr. Daigle has committed to collaborate and contribute to the development of a Doppler Spatial Position Sensor and its integration into the HDI 1000. This HDI 1000 system is of far greater quality than the imager we were proposing to build with the NASA funds.

The added ability to non-invasively measure bone quality
Peter Antich, Ph.D., Sc.D., Director of Advanced Radiological Sciences at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, has agreed to collaborate and contribute to the system by miniaturizing and integrating his Ultrasound Critical-Angle Reflectometry (UCR) technology to measure bone elastic properties. UCR technology has been demonstrated to NASA in an on-going bed rest study at UTSWMC. It enables NASA investigators to monitor changes in bone elastic properties non-invasively, in-vivo on a daily basis on many sites on the body. Preliminary results show that the upper and lower extremities adapt differently compared to one another in a simulated micro gravity environment, not only for cortical bone but still differently for cancellous bone. This outcome was not expected, and only discovered through use of UCR.

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Last Modified: Thu May 11, 2000
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