An “ultraportable” ultrasound probe for smartphones, intended in particular for general practitioners and emergency doctors to assist in diagnosis, and the first of its kind to be manufactured in France, will be launched in the spring, the Assistance publique-Hôpitaux de Paris announced on Wednesday (AP- HP) and the start-up echOpen based there.
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This medical ultrasound imaging probe “fits in your pocket” and “connects wirelessly through a dedicated application” to most Android or iOS smartphones, said Olivier de Fresnoye, co-founder and CEO of echOpen, a start-up born at AP-HP based at the Hôtel Dieu hospital in Paris.
“With your smartphone you can view the image, cache it or send it to a cloud service and share it securely with colleagues,” he continues.
“The aim is not to replace the radiologist’s extremely technical ultrasound machine, which enables an accurate diagnosis,” but to offer primary care providers – general practitioners, specialists or emergency physicians – a “new clinical examination tool”. indicates the manager.
For example, a practitioner, after “auscultating, palpating, questioning” his patient, can “add an echo, as if passing the stethoscope, to see through the skin and various organs such as the liver, the kidney, the heart (…) and guide his diagnosis,” he explains.
Several possible uses are envisaged: for the transfer of patients to the emergency room, for paramedic care, for teleexpertise, etc. with the aim of “accelerating treatment” and “avoiding medical diversion”.
Several manufacturers, particularly American and Chinese, have developed probes of this type, generally intended for experienced doctors and sold for “a few thousand or even tens of thousands of euros,” explains Olivier de Fresnoye. But that of echOpen is a first in France as in Europe for “such an affordable price, less than 1,000 euros”.
The project “came from the intuition of a young doctor, Mehdi Benchoufi” (the other co-founder of echOpen), says Nicolas Castoldi, deputy director at AP-HP.
“A community of engineers” was formed around the Hôtel Dieu to “address this technological challenge: to produce a light, robust, powerful probe at a sufficiently controlled price” to be “generally accessible,” he says. When the club became a start-up in 2021, AP-HP entered “a first” in the capital.
Developed thanks to an “ongoing relationship” with carers, the probe will be used in various “pilot services” from the first trimester before going into production “by April”. The AP-HP hopes “that it will be widely disseminated, in France and abroad and especially in Africa”.