New Device Reveals Hidden Blood Vessels
Thursday, October 05, 2006
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Luminetx
The VeinViewer machine displays the pattern of blood vessels beneath a patient's skin.
The VeinViewer machine displays the pattern of blood vessels beneath a patient's skin.
A new device that projects the position of veins directly onto a patient's skin is helping take the guesswork out of medical pricks and injections.
VeinViewer shines harmless near-infrared light onto a patient's skin. The light's photons are absorbed by red blood cells inside vessels, but bounced back by surrounding tissue.
The reflected photons are captured by a digital video camera and a computer creates a digital image of the vasculature, which is then projected back onto the patient's skin.
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The hidden veins appear on the skin as colorless lines that crisscross a rectangular patch of neon green.
The technology works regardless of a patient's age, body type or skin color, VeinViewer's creators say, and it is accurate to about a quarter of an inch.
Made by Luminetx Corporation, VeinViewer is being tested in hospitals across the country and was demonstrated last week at Wired Magazine's NextFest new-technology forum in New York City.
Copyright © 2006 Imaginova Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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