Hand Held Heart Exam
“Optigo”
 Why
use a stethoscope to monitor your heart, when a better
screening tool is on the way ... a tool that up until now was only
available to cardiologists at large hospitals. Now a big
technology made small may replace your stethoscope.
His family doctor could hear John
Cork's heart, but couldn't see it. So John traveled hundreds of
miles to this place -- where cardiologists use an echocardiography
machine to see the heart. The machine weighs about 300 pounds and
costs $300,000.
Duke University cardiologist John
Alexander, M.D., tells Ivanhoe, "The Optigo was made possible
by the miniaturization of technology. Pretty much everything
that's in [an echocardiography machine] is in this machine, with a
lot fewer bells and whistles."
The Optigo is a handheld
echocardiography machine. Instead of taking the patients to the
large machine like the one on the left, doctors like Dr. Alexander
take the machine to the patient.
"The other advantage of this
machine is that it's cheap compared to this machine. These retail
for about $11,000 and you can actually order one over the web,
they'll ship it to your house," says Dr. Alexander.
An exam from a family doctor
using this device is not as thorough as one from a cardiologist
using the larger version but, "It raises the possibility of
getting echo out there to people who are currently dependent on
stethoscopes," says Dr. Alexander.
With the new device, doctors can
detect heart problems better than with a stethoscope.
Cork says, "I guess it just
means it's a better chance for me to survive, you know, if they
catch it, catch it earlier that way."
High stakes that may put
high-tech ahead of this familiar old symbol of medicine.
A Duke University study showed
that many forms of heart disease such as a weak heart muscle that
are undetectable with a stethoscope could be discovered using a
hand held echocardiograph.
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