A wearable cardiac ultrasound imager

TLDR

Continuous cardiac imaging is essential for long‑term cardiovascular assessment and acute dysfunction detection, yet conventional non‑invasive methods lack continuous capability due to device bulkiness and existing wearables only capture skin signals. The study presents a wearable ultrasonic device that provides continuous, real‑time, direct assessment of cardiac function. By redesigning the device and materials to enhance skin coupling, the system can image the left ventricle from multiple views during motion, and a deep‑learning model automatically extracts left‑ventricular volume to generate stroke volume, cardiac output, and ejection fraction waveforms. The device achieves dynamic, wearable monitoring of cardiac performance with markedly improved accuracy across diverse environments.

Abstract

Abstract 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 patients 1–4 . However, conventional non-invasive approaches to image the cardiac function cannot provide continuous measurements owing to device bulkiness 5–11 , and existing wearable cardiac devices can only capture signals on the skin 12–16 . 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.