Acuson Corporation

Other

Epicor Medical, Inc.

Advanced Micro Devices Corporation

St Jude Medical, Atrial Fibrillation Division, Inc

National Institutes of Health, a Component of the US Dept. of Health & Human Services

University of Cincinnati

John W Sliwa, Jr

Sevig Ayter

Scott Clinton Anderson

Jonathan L Podmore

Matthias Vaska

John Edwards Crowe

Gerard Champsaur

John Alexander Hossack

David J Napolitano

Samuel H Maslak

Gregory L Holley

Edward A Gardner

Roxanne L Richman

Paul E Chandler

Carol A Tosaya

John P Mohr, Iii

Thomas G Cooper

Vaughn R Marian

Gary Henry Miller

Stephen A Morse

Amin M Hanafy

Pankaj Dixit

John D Marshall

Richard A Lyon

Sassan Shahidi

S Lawrence Marple, Jr

Gelston Howell

Thilaka S Sumanaweera

William John Park

Richard W Henderson

Jay Sterling Plugge

Walter T Wilser

Worth B Walters

Robert Mesaros

Michael G Curley

Joan Carol Main

Samuel M Howard

Gerald R Harris

Randal J Bertuccelli

Kathleen A Ruvolo

Matthew T Spigelmyer

Michael H Ikeda

Donald R Mullen

Ronald A Robinson

Jim Talbot

Oren Shelley

Marilou F Camacho

Brian S MacInnes

Rupak K Banerjee

Prasanna Hariharan

Matthew R Myers

Subha Maruvada

Champa G Sridhar

Stacey T Baba

Wendy J Lee

Michelle L Jung

Nancy A Cheadle

Rick L Edmiston

An ablating device has a cover which holds an interface material such as a gel. The cover contains the interface material during initial placement of the device. The ablating device may also have a removable tip or a membrane filled with fluid. In still another aspect, the ablating device may be submerged in liquid during operation.

Methods and devices for ablation

Ultrasonic, sonic or vibratory energy, delivered non-invasively, minimally invasively or invasively (e.g. surgically), is utilized to provide direct cleaning action at or to the location of the implanted device such as a prosthetic heart valve with undesirable deposits of at least some amount thereon or therein. Such ultra-sound energy may be aided by the use of a drug in association or cooperation with the acoustic irradiation. The 'cleaning' acoustic energy may optionally be delivered under the guidance of an imaging modality and may be delivered in a timed or gated manner such that the valve occluders or leaflets are in a preferred position (assuming they are functioning) during exposures.

Non-contact damage-free ultrasonic cleaning of implanted or natural structures having moving parts and located in a living body

The formation and manipulation of microbubbles, microdroplets and films of (preferably) flowable materials, such as liquids and gases, are used to beneficially control or modulate acoustic-energy propagation, electromagnetic-energy propagation or electrical potential and current application. A droplet, bubble or film causes at least one of reflection, refraction, diffraction, attenuation, sapping, scattering, dissipation, redirection, conversion or blocking of at least one component of the energy due to the droplet, bubble or film causing a propagation discontinuity, disruption or energy-barrier to the energy. The energy comprises at least one of acoustic, electrical, electromagnetic, magnetic, kinetic, mechanical, chemical, RF, thermal, pneumatic, hydraulic or non-visible optical energy.

Microbubble and microdroplet switching, manipulation and modulation of acoustic, electromagnetic and electrical waves, energies and potentials

Condensation of water from a gas, such as from atmospheric air or other nearby ambient gas, is provided for use in a variety of jetting devices, such as inkjet and lab-on-a-chip applications. Further embodiments involve the use of frozen liquids, not limited to frozen condensed water, and microcooling of fluidic components or working materials for improved process control and reliability.

Cooling, condensation and freezing of atmospheric water or of a microfluidic working-material in or on microfluidic devices

A system for optically characterizing an acoustic beam generally includes an immersant, which is an immersion medium seeded with a plurality of seed particles that respond to illumination with fluorescence indicative of at least one parameter of the immersant such as flow or temperature. Optical transmitters illuminate the immersant slicewise, and optical receptors receive the fluorescence in order to generate a three-dimensional map of the parameter over time. A processor back-calculates one or more characteristics of an acoustic beam that results in the map. The processor initially generates a behavior model of an acoustic beam propagating in the immersant by utilizing initial guesses for the characteristics. The initial guess model is compared to the map, and an optimization routine is used to refine the initial guesses. The process repeats iteratively with refined guesses until the difference between the model and the map is minimized.

Optical techniques and system for 3-D characterization of ultrasound beams

A means and method are provided for enhancing or replacing the natural excitation of the human vocal tract by artificial excitation means, wherein the artificially created acoustics present additional spectral, temporal, or phase data useful for (1) enhancing the machine recognition robustness of audible speech or (2) enabling more robust machine-recognition of relatively inaudible mouthed or whispered speech. The artificial excitation (a) may be arranged to be audible or inaudible, (b) may be designed to be non-interfering with another user's similar means, (c) may be used in one or both of a vocal content-enhancement mode or a complimentary vocal tract-probing mode, and/or (d) may be used for the recognition of audible or inaudible continuous speech or isolated spoken commands.

Signal injection coupling into the human vocal tract for robust audible and inaudible voice recognition

A capacitive microelectromechanical ultrasound transducer array with improved efficiency and durability is provided. Efficiency is provided by stacking CMUTs in the range dimension (i.e. away from the face of the transducer). A plurality of chambers and associated membranes are stacked along a range dimension or parallel to the direction of acoustic radiation. Because the CMUT transducer element is stacked, ultrasound is transmitted through the plurality of chambers, amplifying the response of the transducer element. Durability is increased within the transducer by filling the chamber with a nongaseous filler. A liquid, polymer, solid or plasma fills the chamber or chambers. The nongaseous filler allows movement of the membrane for transducing between acoustic and electrical energies, but prevents collapse or bottoming out of the membrane.

Stacked and filled capacitive microelectromechanical ultrasonic transducer for medical diagnostic ultrasound systems

A system and method for diagnostic ultrasound imaging with a probe combining one or more ultrasound imaging transducer elements and a body-tissue parameter measurement mechanism to detect body-tissue properties. At least one ultrasound transducer element provides an ultrasound image field of view of at least a portion of the body-tissue being measured by the parameter measurement mechanism. The parameter measurement mechanism is typically a mechanically or electrically operated mechanism attached to the probe near at least one ultrasound transducer element in order to combine information from the body-tissue parameter measurement mechanism and ultrasound transducer element for easier identification of abnormal body-tissue properties (e.g., tumors, dead, or diseased body-tissue).

System and method for assessing body-tissue properties using a medical ultrasound transducer probe with a body-tissue parameter measurement mechanism

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

John W Sliwa, Jr