New Stethoscopes Aim For Less Noise, More Signal
The Wall Street Journal shows how stethoscopes introduced by several equipment manufacturers from 3M to Welch Allyn can both filter out ambient noise that might cover the respiratory and cardiac sounds doctors are trying to hear, and amplify subtler sounds. While devices invented in the nineties tended to amplify both signal and noise levels, newer technology can increase the former while dampening the later, which makes them much more useful (the availability of small batteries was also necessary for the technology to take off). Faint wheezes and noises can indicate conditions such as pneumonia, bronchial cancer or a partially collapsed lung.
Though advanced stethoscopes can cost as much as ten times more than conventional ones, doctors tend to procure them themselves directly, rather than go through centralized materials management. Sound levels in hospitals have increased during the last decades because of monitoring devices, announcements on loudspeakers and air conditioning. This might make it worth replacing acoustic stethoscopes (which still account for about 90 percent of sales) with electronic ones if their cost keeps decreasing.
January 19, 2006 Related topics: New Technology & Innovation, Diagnostic, Cardiology