SonoScape S9v for Echocardiography

SonoScape was a relative latecomer to the professional veterinary echocardiography market. The S8v, which really took hold of the UK market from 2011 onwards, was billed as suitable for cardiac scanning, and indeed it was more than good enough for ‘first line’ echo. With its high resolution 2D imaging, one could get an immediate picture of ventricular function, hypertrophy, and the presence of a pericardial effusion.

Where the S8v fell down, however, was in its post-processing – or lack of. All measurements had to be done at the time of acquisition; this was clearly problematic in the veterinary world, when one might have only seconds to capture images on an uncooperative cat, for example. Asking the patient to wait while the endocardial border was traced was simply not an option. Indeed, even in the human world where patients kick, scratch and bite less frequently, time-consuming measurements like ejection fraction or the tracing of Doppler envelopes* are not performed as part of the examination, but at the end of the scan or even in the reporting room.

* This may become a thing of the past with Doppler auto-trace, now present on systems like the Edan AX8 or top end of the Siemens range.

For specialist echocardiographers who needed to perform all measurements and compile a full report, therefore, the S8 fell short. It is important to stress that the S8 was still a great solution for the vast majority of practices. In the veterinary world, there is currently no equivalent of the British Society of Echocardiography; veterinary echocardiographers usually work in relative isolation, following their own protocols. There is no “minimum dataset” to collect, and apart from the specialists, most vets’ echoes consist of a series of images and cine loop captures, often only 2D and Colour Doppler, with measurements not consistently taken or needed. In this way, scans are very similar to a “focused echo” in the human world, as often discussed in the context of handheld systems as screening tools. Many veterinary echocardiograms are, in fact, screens, with more complex findings then being referred on to a specialist.

The S9 was SonoScape’s eventual answer to this problem. Now that measurements could be performed on the saved image, combined with the exceptional resolution of the phased array transducer , even the most particular of cardiologists could be satisfied.

Below: Right parasternal view on the S9. Thank you, dextroversion, for convenient and caninesque echo windows (most humans, as I’m sure you know, need to lie in a left lateral decubitus position for their parasternal views to be obtained).

The only barrier the S9 faced, was price. As a newcomer to the serious echocardiography market in the UK, a price difference of £4-5k between the S9 and leading GE systems of the day just wasn’t sufficient for many vets to ‘take the risk’ on the S9 as a dedicated cardiology ultrasound machine. As an all-rounder in a flagship practice, yes; but at around £20,000, when it came to a single-use system, people stuck with household names.