Dornoosh Zonoobi, PhD, and Jacob Jaremko, MD/PhD.
Photos: Laughing Dog Photography
A University of Alberta spinoff company is hoping its new technology to analyze ultrasound images will make diagnosing health problems possible even from remote locations.
"My vision is for a 21st-century stethoscope, a tool where you can look inside the body and use artificial intelligence to help people who are not experts interpret the images," says U of A radiologist Jacob Jaremko, MD/PhD.
Along with former U of A/Alberta Innovates post-doctoral fellow Dornoosh Zonoobi, PhD, and Jeevesh Kapur, MMed, a radiologist from Singapore, Jaremko formed Medo.ai two years ago to develop and commercialize software that creates and analyzes 3D images from ultrasounds.
The company is focusing first on using its technology to correctly diagnose hip dysplasia in infants. When diagnosed early, hip dysplasia can be treated with a simple harness worn by the infant for a few weeks, eliminating the eventual need for hip-replacement surgery.
The new system allows an operator with minimal training to take three-dimensional images that can be uploaded and compared with a large data set of other images to identify abnormalities and suggest a diagnosis.
Jaremko and Zonoobi gave medical students just one hour of training on the system and found they were able to produce 3D images as reliable as those produced by senior technicians.
Jaremko says analysis of the images is made possible by recent advances in computing power that allow networked computers to artificially mimic the learning function of the human brain.
"This is a revolutionary thing," he says, adding that while other medical imaging methods such as CT, MRI and X-ray are easier to analyze than ultrasound, they aren't as portable.
"Ultrasound is safe, it is becoming cheaper by the day and it can easily fit into a pocket," says Zonoobi. "It's like magic-you can see inside the patient's body in real time."
Medo.ai's ultrasound device takes 3D images that can be easily compared with a large data set of other images to identify abnormalities and suggest a diagnosis.
Photo: Laughing Dog Photography
Medo.ai is already testing applications of the technology for other types of injuries and conditions.
"We want to take the expertise of the hospital to the patient, rather than have the patient come to the hospital," Jaremko says.
Jaremko and Zonoobi also see the potential for use in remote communities in northern Canada and around the world.
"Right now, families have to drive for hours and hours in the middle of winter just to get a simple scan done," says Zonoobi. "There should be a way of decentralizing and democratizing medical imaging."
Medo.ai applied for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in February and meanwhile has begun pilots in the United States, Singapore and Australia. Other pilots in Brazil and Alberta will also begin shortly. The company aims to have a proven hip dysplasia detection application in use throughout Alberta within five years.
Jacob Jaremko, MD, holds the Alberta Health Services Chair in Diagnostic Imaging at the U of A and is also a member of the Women and Children's Health Research Institute (WCHRI).