Edmond Knopp, MD

Hyperfine Senior Medical Director, Dr. Edmond Knopp, on the Recent Nature Communications Paper

Nature Communications recently published a comprehensive paper based on neuroimaging obtained with the Swoop^_® Portable MR Imaging System^_™. The paper states, “This approach allows for a reversal in the clinical paradigm, wherein the pMRI comes to the patient. Our results extend our preliminary success in deploying a pMRI solution to the bedside of critically ill patient populations.”

What follows is our Senior Medical Director, Dr. Edmond Knopp’s summary of this paper. If you would like more info about this paper, email us to set up a call to discuss the findings with Dr. Knopp.

About the Paper
Kevin Sheth, MD, and his group from Yale looked at the value of the Swoop Portable MR Imaging System in evaluating intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). The study spanned a two-year timeframe and analyzed 144 exams comprised of 56 with intracerebral hemorrhage, 48 with acute ischemic stroke, and 40 healthy controls. Two highly experienced board-certified neuroradiologists made the interpretations.

The study looked at the utility of the Swoop system both in the detection of intracerebral hemorrhage as well (and maybe more importantly) the identification of “blood-negative” cases. In addition, the study compared determinations of manually segmented hematoma values between the Swoop system and the standard of care.

The readers identified “blood-negative” cases with a specificity of ~97%—giving assurance that there is no actionable ICH present, enabling more aggressive treatment strategies in appropriate clinical scenarios. In addition, the study showed that the readers identified the presence of ICH with an overall sensitivity of ~80%. However, halfway through the study, realizing the significant potential benefits of recent and ongoing improvements to Swoop hardware and (more importantly) software, they segmented the data, which showed that the overall sensitivity went up to ~85% for the data encompassing the latter portion of the study.

What are the key takeaways from this work?

• The study exemplified how the Swoop system can exclude the presence of significant intracerebral hemorrhage with 97% specificity.
• The study demonstrated the ease of use of the Swoop system in the setting of patients presenting with stroke symptoms in an ICU environment.
• The study confirmed the Swoop system can identify the presence of intracerebral hemorrhage and follow and measure it with diagnostic accuracy compared to the conventional standard of care.
• The study validates the appearance and clinical implications of hemorrhage using a point-of-care device capable of establishing diagnosis at the patient’s bedside.
• As demonstrated in the study, Hyperfine is actively working to improve the diagnostic utility of the Swoop™ system. We are continuously working to drive this evolution, and with the Swoop subscription, we provide software updates via the cloud.
• Clinicians collected data over two years, from 2018 to 2020, initially using older software and hardware. However, the clinicians used much newer hardware and software in the latter portion of the study. In addition, the use of our FDA-submitted DL reconstruction should provide improved results in an extension of the study.

What’s next for Hyperfine and Dr. Sheth’s group?
Dr. Sheth's group will continue to study sensitivity and specificity as the Swoop system continues to improve. In particular, deep-learning algorithms (already submitted to the FDA) are further improving image quality and will potentially significantly increase sensitivity and specificity.

Read the full paper.