一種新型“可視聽診器”可以在計算機屏幕上顯示三維心音圖像，2004年10月在美國拉斯維加斯（Las Vegas， NV，USA）舉行的美國麻醉醫師年會上展示了這種設備。

日本Mamamatsu大學醫學院的Hiroshi Makino博士與同事一起發明了這種新型聽診器。他說：由單個醫生來客觀評介患者病情是十分困難的，對這些病情的描述往往過于主觀。當聽取患者心音時，醫生必須清楚了解最細微的變化，但是傳統的聽診器并不能很好地為醫生提供所必需的信息。

這種新型聽診器被稱為VisiStetho，在計算機屏幕上通過三維的上升與下降波浪來顯示可見的心音曲線。當醫生知道什么是正常心音圖形的時候，就可以將患者心音與正常心音相比較，并在計算機屏幕上或者打印件上很容易地看出異常。也可以通過總結幾個醫生對該聽診器提供資料的多數意見而做出臨床診斷。目前VisiStetho需要將患者同時連接在話筒、二氧化碳描記裝置、心電圖上，然后將這些結果被輸送到控制臺，通過計算機軟件來來處理輸出結果。打印件可以貼在患者醫療記錄中。

但是Makino博士解釋說：“VisiStetho仍然處于發展之中。當我們能夠將它的體積減小，比如說減少到手機大小，并且加速診斷過程，VisiStetho就會被全球醫生廣泛使用。”

Novel Stethoscope Shows Heart Sounds on Computer

A new “visual stethoscope” reproduces heart sounds as three-dimensional (3D) images on a computer screen. The instrument was introduced at the annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists in Las Vegas (NV, USA) in October 2004.

Objective evaluation of a patient’s condition is difficult when conducted by a single individual, and the results tend to be described too subjectively. Doctors need to be aware of the most subtle variations when dealing with heart sounds in a patient, but conventional stethoscopes do not always give them the information they need, according to Dr. Hiroshi Makino, an anesthesiologist at the Mamamatsu University School of Medicine (Japan), who developed the new stethoscope along with colleagues.

Called VisiStetho, the scope works by visualizing heart sounds as 3D rising and falling waves on a computer screen. When doctors know what healthy waves look like, they can compare their patients’ heart sounds to the healthy waves and easily see aberrations by simply looking at a computer screen or printout. The stethoscope also makes it easy to reach a diagnosis through a consensus of several doctors. Currently, the VisiStetho requires that a patient be hooked up simultaneously to a microphone, capnogram, and electrocardiogram, which are fed into a console box and interpreted by computer software. The printout can be attached to the patient’s medical record.

“The VisiStetho is a developing tool,” explained Dr. Makino. “But when we can downsize it to, say, the size of a cellular telephone and speed up the diagnosis process, the VisiStetho will be used by doctors worldwide.”