Fibrotouch: Three PhD entrepreneurs conquer 150 hospitals

The technology of 3 Tsinghua doctors has conquered the market share of 150 hospitals. Article | Guo Wenjun at the end of 2009 when the Doctor was about to graduate, in order to discuss what to do after the question, Shao Jinhua, Jin, Duan Li three people together again. Three of them from the entrance to Tsinghua University to read the undergraduate course is the same professional dormitory friends. Later in the study, Shao Jinhua went to a more detailed biomedical engineering, and Jin, Duan Li Two people continue to learn automation. During his reading, Shao Jinhua saw an academic paper on instantaneous elasticity imaging, which found three people with common goals: the instantaneous elastic imaging technique mentioned in this paper mainly refers to the use of low-frequency shear waves to detect the hardness of the organs in medical testing, so as to determine the degree of elasticity of the organs through the hardness. This technology is applied to the market, which is a medical device capable of testing the elasticity of the tissue. Because most of the pathological changes in tissue are different from the healthy tissue, this technique has a wide application prospect in medicine. Combined with their own professional director, three hit decided to start a business. Innovation China 2014 "in the final showdown, the last appearance of the Jin represented by the Sea Themyscira successfully won this year's Demo God Award. Jin shows a fibrotouch liver health non-invasive diagnostic system that can be non-invasive, rapid, and at the same time ensure a high rate of accuracy in the liver health test. Expert "Entrepreneurial direction Tsinghua University has a very wide spread of the concept of educating people: expert. Put into the context of the present, Jin to understand this sentence, both the larger social significance, but also with their own study of the professional has a better combination. So on the ground of technology, three people developed the first product selected a large audience of the liver health test market. Fibrosis of the liver is a slow and silent process. When the liver is damaged to a certain extent, all kinds of pathogenic factors will cause abnormal hyperplasia of connective tissue in the liver, resulting in excessive precipitation of diffuse extracellular matrix in the liver. This precipitation will make the original soft liver gradually lose elasticity, developed to the later stage, it may gradually become cirrhosis or even liver cancer. Jin cites a metaphor from Chinese medicine to describe the process of liver fibrosis: a healthy liver is as soft as a lip, and after fibrosis it becomes as tough as the tip of the nose, and the hardened liver is even as hard as the forehead. Liver fibrosis is the only way for chronic liver disease to develop to cirrhosis, but the silence of the process is that the liver itself does not have a pain nerve. That is, when the liver is damaged and even begins to become fibrous, unless it is an apparent viral hepatitis, the liver damage caused by alcohol, fat, and autoimmune defects does not cause a particularly obvious pain. The fibrosis of the liver may have developed in the middle and late stages when many people find the liver unwell. It is therefore important for patients to have access to medical interventions early in the liver fibrosis. Professor Hans Popper, an academic expert on liver disease in the United States, has openly expressed this assertion: who can stop or postponeLiver fibrosis occurs when most chronic liver disease is cured. "In the current clinical testing, the liver fibrosis detection mainly in the following categories." A kind of blood test, in the hospital is commonly referred to as four liver fiber, that is, through the blood of a certain four indicators of detection to determine fibrosis, but this detection method of the defect is not high sensitivity, that is, in the early stage of liver fibrosis, these indicators changes are not obvious. Another is currently widely used in liver biopsy, usually known as liver puncture, like a minimally invasive surgery, doctors will be through the puncture needle cut small liver tissue under the microscope to observe, to determine the degree of liver fibrosis. As the accuracy of detection is relatively ideal, liver puncture is usually used as the gold standard in liver fibrosis detection, but because it is a invasive test, the clinical application of liver puncture has certain limitations. Let three of people sprout the instantaneous elastic imaging technology of entrepreneurial impulse was applied in 2003, and was put forward by French scholar Sandrin and others. This technique is based on the principle that the propagation velocity of the instantaneous low-frequency shear wave is related to the propagation medium elasticity, and the degree of fibrosis can be judged by the velocity of low-frequency shear wave propagating in human organs. Because of the non-invasive and convenient detection methods, the instantaneous elastic imaging technique is more advantageous in the screening of the general population of liver fibrosis and the long-term follow-up of the patients than liver puncture. More than 150 hospitals are in use at the end of 2010, a prototype of the first diagnostic system developed by three people in a 10-square-metre laboratory near Tsinghua University was born. The pig's liver, which was bought from the market, became the original test for the prototype. The instantaneous elastic imaging technique is applied to the elastic detection of human organs, in which the detection of liver fibrosis is an important application direction. Unlike existing products on the market, Heisker finally launched the Fibrotouch is the world's first imaging-guided non-invasive liver fibrosis detection equipment, in the instantaneous elastic imaging technology based on the addition of two-dimensional imaging technology. In other words, in the actual detection, the Fibrotouch has the image guidance function can display in the examination screen the human body internal liver specific position, thus locks to be tested the liver organization, then uses the low frequency shearing wave technique to carry on noninvasive liver fibrosis examination. Because of the image of the guidance, in the detection can avoid the human body large blood vessels, the interference of cysts and nodules, coupled with the optimization of probe techniques and detection algorithms, fibrotouch the speed of detection from 7-8 seconds of traditional technology to 1 seconds, and achieves a consistent rate of more than 90% of liver puncture results in accuracy. In order to allow a wider range of applications, Heisker also added a fibrotouch to the fatty liver to accommodate the growing population of fatty liver patients. The degree of liver fibrosis and the degree of fatty liver are two results of each test with Fibrotouch. In the rendering of the result,Fibrotouch is to use specific figures to indicate the specific degree of liver fibrosis and fatty liver, the previous liver puncture relatively vague mild, moderate, severe degree of fibrosis into specific numbers, so as to facilitate the doctor to make clear judgments and patient review. According to Jin, Fibrotouch's price has been reduced by nearly 200,000 yuan compared with the prices of similar products, and more than 150 hospitals have been using the diagnostic system since the 2013-year product was officially marketed, some of which are on loan. The choice of liver detection as a point of entry is because, whether in the world or in China, liver injury exists in the population base is very large. And then, Jin said, Heisker will also apply the technology to other organs, such as the heart, kidneys, blood vessels, to expand the market space.