By Paige Kiecker
For WisBusiness.com
You’re certain you have pulled or even torn something in your knee. However, the nearest magnetic resonance imaging machine, or MRI, is miles away – and the examination alone may cost more than your insurance will pay. Worse, the results could take days to obtain.
A Wisconsin business is pioneering the future of musculoskeletal injury diagnosis using a source that is both familiar and underutilized – ultrasound technologies.
Echometrix LLC is in the planning and testing stages of commercializing its first product, Echosoft. This product is a software that analyzes the images captured by an ultrasound scan, then provides a diagnosis on the status of the tissue. The diagnostic ultrasound market is a $5 billion industry and growing, and Echometrix hopes to capture a significant amount of this market share with the release of Echosoft in 2014.
Madison-based Echometrix was founded in 2007 by Ray Vanderby, Hirohito Kobayashi and Barbara Israel. This past August the company hired Jeff Dalsin as its chief executive officer. Dalsin has extensive experience in the medical device field, as well as developing technologies from a research and development level to a commercial endpoint.
“My background was primarily in implanted device technology, so there was a bit of a learning curve getting up to speed on ultrasounds and injury diagnostics,” Dalsin said. “But I learned quickly and am excited about this product and its potential.”
Echosoft is a patented software that evaluates the functional status of soft tissues such as ligaments, tendons and muscles. It works with traditional ultrasound machines already found in many hospitals and clinics. The software takes the image loops of tissue seen on the ultrasound machine and analyzes the images for motion, image brightness and other features that allow a diagnosis to be made on the severity of an injury. It is most useful when used on soft tissues. Potential applications for this technology include orthopedic, sports medicine and physical therapy clinics.
The company says Echosoft has many advantages over MRIs, which are the current method of diagnosing musculoskeletal injury. For the same cost of one MRI scan, three scans with an ultrasound equipped with Echosoft can be performed.
With Echosoft, the patient would have the option to schedule an initial diagnostic scan, as well as two follow-up scans to monitor the healing and rehabilitation process, all for the same price as one initial diagnostic MRI scan. Also, Echosoft can better detect the difference between strained or torn tissue than an MRI scan can, leading to better treatment plans and faster recoveries.
In addition, MRIs are severely limited by high cost, lack of portability, reduced availability, and are unable to provide information on the functional status of tissue. Patients often must wait weeks after sustaining an injury before their MRI appointment due to the high demand and scarcity of machines.
Dalsin sees MRI as the primary competition for Echosoft, as it is the only other technology on the market that can differentiate between soft tissue tears versus strains. However, a similar technology is ShearWave Elastography, a technology developed by Supersonic Imagine. ShearWave is also used with an ultrasound machine, but instead of using compression to measure tissue displacement, ShearWave uses sonic waves that flow through the tissue to test stiffness, and then provides a color coded image.
“[ShearWave] doesn’t work on high pressure tissue such as tendons like Echosoft does,” Dalsin said. “It is used more to detect tumors, which have a different level of stiffness than the normal tissue around them.”
Echosoft is currently in alpha testing, a verification phase that will make sure the product is functioning properly before being moved on to beta testing. Echometrix has hired a sonographer to perform the alpha testing on volunteers with soft tissue injuries. Echometrix plans a commercial launch in late 2014.
Echometrix is seeking funding for its beta testing and clinical evaluation phase. Dalsin hopes to eventually partner with an ultrasound manufacturer for distribution, potentially even building Echosoft into the machines from the start. Eventually, Echometrix hopes to exit through acquisition by this strategic partner.
— Kiecker is a student in the UW-Madison Department of Life Sciences Communication.
