Memphis Commercial Appeal:
VeinViewer developer Luminetx wants to look deeper inside the body
Friday, November 03, 2006
By Daniel Connolly
Excerpts from the article
If you step up to the VeinViewer and place your hand under the light, you'll see an image of your own blood vessels on your skin.
The device uses infrared light that penetrates the skin to project a greenish image of blood vessels onto the body, helping doctors make injections in patients with hard-to-find veins.
The problem is that it only shows vessels a few centimeters below the surface.
...Waleed Gaber, a professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center who last week helped organize a scientific conference on imaging techniques, said it may be possible to use light to see deeper inside the body than the VeinViewer can.
...New infrared devices could help detect diseases like breast cancer, he said. But there are limitations: Bone blocks light, and light has a tendency to scatter inside the body, which would render images less accurate, he said.
Those applications are still far off. For now, Phillips is enthusiastic about further applications for the VeinViewer, developed by scientists at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
...Phillips showed the breakfast crowd flattering clips of television reporters trying out the VeinViewer and doctors using it in hospitals.
Then he hit them with a tougher image: the VeinViewer highlighting blood vessels in a pig's heart. The firm is working with universities that he wouldn't name to develop ways to use the VeinViewer in surgeries, he told the crowd.
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