A wearable cardiac ultrasound imager

Continuous imaging of cardiac functions is highly desirable for the assessment of long-term cardiovascular health, detection of acute cardiac dysfunction and clinical management of critically ill or surgical patients1-4. However, conventional non-invasive approaches to image the cardiac function cannot provide continuous measurements owing to device bulkiness5-11, and existing wearable cardiac devices can only capture signals on the skin12-16. Here we report a wearable ultrasonic device for continuous, real-time and direct cardiac function assessment. We introduce innovations in device design and material fabrication that improve the mechanical coupling between the device and human skin, allowing the left ventricle to be examined from different views during motion. We also develop a deep learning model that automatically extracts the left ventricular volume from the continuous image recording, yielding waveforms of key cardiac performance indices such as stroke volume, cardiac output and ejection fraction. This technology enables dynamic wearable monitoring of cardiac performance with substantially improved accuracy in various environments.

Hongjie Hu, Hao Huang, Mohan Li, Xiaoxiang Gao, Lu Yin, Ruixiang Qi, Ray S. Wu, Xiangjun Chen, Yuxiang Ma, Keren Shi, Chenghai Li, Timothy M. Maus, Brady Huang, Chengchangfeng Lu, Muyang Lin, Sai Zhou, Zhiyuan Lou, Yue Gu, Yimu Chen, Yusheng Lei, Xinyu Wang, Ruotao Wang, Wentong Yue, Xinyi Yang, Yizhou Bian, Jing Mu, Geonho Park, Shu Xiang, Shengqiang Cai, Paul W. Corey, Joseph Wang, Sheng Xu