FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Rob Whitehouse, 216/444-8927
January 27, 1999. Marion Moseley, 216/444-9456

CLEVELAND CLINIC RECEIVES $3 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT TO DEVELOP 3-D ULTRASOUND FOR USE IN COMBAT CONDITIONS

The U.S. Department of Defense is awarding the Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute more than $3 million over the next three years to develop a three-dimensional ultrasound that can be used by medical corpsmen in combat situations.

The proposed design combines telemedicine with high-speed medical scanning equipment, thus allowing a corpsman to transmit internal images of an injured soldier to physicians in a hospital for immediate diagnosis. The high-speed device also could be used at field hospitals to provide surgeons a fast and accurate method of detecting shrapnel.

"The first goal in treating a trauma patient - be it in combat or in everyday life - is to quickly and accurately determine the location and extent of the injuries," said project director J. Fredrick Cornhill, D.Phil., chairman of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. "Currently, there is no system in place to collect and interpret medical images in the field. In this project, we plan to utilize emerging technologies in both telemedicine and high-speed ultrasound to fill this need."

Using current technology in a combat situation would be ineffective: ultrasound equipment is not easily portable, scanning takes too much time, and the expertise needed for accurate diagnosis requires years of training.

Recent advances in telemedicine - which involves transmitting medical scans to remote locations without losing image clarity - clears one of those obstacles in allowing trained personnel to interpret the ultrasound images. That, however, leaves this project with two objectives:

  1. to develop a portable ultrasound scanner that can collect 3-D data 40 to 80 times faster than current 3-D imaging approaches; and
  2. to develop software tools for rapid image manipulation and analysis at a remote site.

"A corpsman would simply place a small probe on the patient and position it by viewing real-time two-dimensional images. Once the probe is correctly placed, it would begin collecting the 3-D data, which subsequently would be transmitted to a central hospital for analysis," said Dr. Cornhill. "The entire process would take only a few minutes."

In a civilian setting, such a device in the hands of emergency medical technicians or paramedics would allow physicians to diagnose the extent of patients' injuries before they arrive in the emergency room. In addition, with the aid of high-speed imaging to detect internal injuries, emergency surgery could be performed more efficiently.

Kimerly Powell, Ph.D., and Geoff Lockwood, Ph.D., of the Cleveland Clinic Department of Biomedical Engineering, are the principal investigators for the project. Collaborating investigators are Steven Gaverick, Ph.D., of Case Western Reserve University, Clyde Oakley, Ph.D., of the Tetrad Corporation, and Raj Shekhar, Ph.D., of the Cleveland Clinic.

The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, founded in 1921, integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education in a private, non-profit group practice. Approximately 1,100 full-time salaried physicians at the Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Clinic Florida, representing more than 100 medical specialties and subspecialties, provided care through more than 2 million outpatient visits and 51,000 hospital admissions in 2000 for patients from throughout the United States and more than 80 countries.

With more than 3,000 available beds, the Cleveland Clinic Health System, formed in 1996, offers broad geographic coverage and a full continuum of high quality care. It includes The Cleveland Clinic Foundation; Cleveland Clinic Florida, a multi-specialty group practice near Fort Lauderdale; Cleveland Clinic Florida Hospital Naples; and the Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital for Rehabilitation. The Cleveland Clinic Health System also includes eight respected community-based providers: Euclid, Fairview, Hillcrest, Huron, Lakewood, Lutheran, Marymount and South Pointe hospitals. Ashtabula County Medical Center and Grace Hospital are affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic Health System.