Last week I had my first extensive look at a Vivid 7 Dimension BT06 with 4D when
it hit our doors. I spent some time with the 4D and it's quite an impressive piece of equipment.
Probably the coolest thing is the fact that the 4D
probe is purely electronic. While this isn't new for cardiac, it just
makes me wonder how long it will take the Obstetric 4D probes be fully
electronic instead of the mechanical ones they use now. This 4V probe for the
Vivid 7 is huge (see photos). It's a good 3-4 times the size of the standard M4S
probe for the Vivid 7 and it's a bit awkward. But this isn't the probe
you'd use for scanning the whole time anyway... you'd use it for the 4D
application, which is quite cool... particularly because it's true
real-time imaging.... the Obstetric 4D stuff is real-time, but it takes
a compilation of slices and builds the image while the transducer
inside the case is swiveling back-and-forth. The 3V probe does it all
digitally and has no moving parts, keeping the frame-rate high and
providing you, essentially, with true real-time. I tried pulling some images off the machine, but it was giving me a heck of a time. I'll try and get some images of my heart up soon.
Overall this is a really slick ultrasound. The user interface still has a bit to be desired, although it's come a long way from the old days ... it still doesn't quite match up to that of GE's Voluson, Logiq 9, Seimens Antares or some of the other cool new UI's coming out these days. The image quality is outstanding and the 4D is really quite amazing. Sure, it has a ways to go, but acquisition time is incredible and it's quite easy to use (optimization will be the problem, but this is quite a bit easier to understand and get used to
than the Obstetric 4D ultrasound). I also liked the Multiplane imaging, which gives a nice perspective of the heart in a synchronized view (without having to use a stress echo protocol).
The Vivid 7 Dimension BT06 can save images to disk very quickly... I was really impressed with the speed in which it would store loops and still images... not a break in productivity at all. And maybe one of the coolest gee-whiz factors is the color Doppler in 4D scanning, which has very solid frame rates and decent color that is mapped atop the 4D image... I didn't find it to be tremendously refined, but you can see where this is going and what's to come in the future. One of these days I'll get onsite with a customer and spend some time with this 4D application and see how truly useful it is for the everyday cardiologist.... and how long it will be until it's truly applicable and affordable.
Our service guys checked it out, too, and it appears that its reliability will be similar to that of the other Vivid systems (good)... Windows based systems with semi-predictable hard drives. This system uses Windows XP Embedded, which is essentially a smaller, optimized version of Windows XP that removes all that extra Operating System junk that's not needed in the ultrasound. We haven't had time to play with it a whole lot, but I'm sure it'll reduce potential software and driver conflicts, and free up valuable RAM (hence the faster frame-rates, quicker acquisition time, faster boot-up time, etc). the machine boots in just under 2 minutes, which isn't too bad considering all that's in this machine.
Ever since we saw the Voluson systems running Windows 2K (and the Medison systems on Windows 95 before that), we had a feeling that Windows would be driving the ultrasounds of the future... it greatly reduced the overhead of a complex web of circuit boards, which add weight, problems and size to the ultrasound. It also predicted the rise of the HCU (Hand-Carried Ultrasound) market in which we would quickly see high-quality laptop-sized ultrasounds, which will be a story for another day. For now, we've got to ship this Vivid 7 to our customer today, who will hopefully be as impressed as we were with this machine. The Windows thing has got me thinking about another blog on the emergence of the HCU market and how huge it's going to be.
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