 Ultrasound laptop for World Cup
 As all eyes focus on Germany for this year’s football World Cup, there is new hope for diagnosing and treating on-field injuries, allowing coaches to take critical decisions on whether to play on or substitute the injured player.
GE’s new LOGIQ Book XP portable ultrasound scanner, which was used by the Great Britain, US and France teams at the recent Winter Olympics in Turin, will be used at the football World Cup starting on June 9 this year.
The LOGIQ Book XP is a portable, compact ultrasound device that combines in a laptop format the image quality, raw data handling and scope of performance of larger standard systems, yet it only weighs 4.6 kg. The device has a powerful battery and also offers on-board archiving or wireless-LAN. It allows diagnoses to be made and the results to be quickly sent on to hospitals.
During the World Cup, it is especially important for teams to be able to make a rapid and precise diagnosis of an injured world-class player. This is the only way a quick decision can be made on whether a player can play on or must be substituted.
 For example, to be able to treat a football player right on the sideline, instead of having to admit him first to the nearest hospital for a more precise diagnosis and examination, it is essential to have powerful, portable ultrasound compact equipment right at the scene of the incident.
There won’t be much time during the World Cup to admit the player to a hospital for an initial diagnosis and examination - as it happened not long ago to Philipp Lahm, who received an elbow injury during a World Cup preparation match.
For tendon, ligament and muscle injuries, the new LOGIQ Book XP allows quick and reliable diagnosis. In the past, if an athlete was injured in training or during competition, they would have to be taken to a hospital or the sports event clinic, which delayed the identification and treatment of the patient by hours. The new system can make a fast and accurate assessment of the injury and in some cases that treatment can begin immediately.
Dr Jochen Gruber, association physician of the FC Nurernberg, states: "If a football player becomes unable to continue to play during the World Cup, this is a major problem for the affected team not only in the moment of the game, but may also negatively affect the further progress of the competition. Support in clinical diagnostics in the football stadium by means of a portable ultrasound unit provides information about the severity of the injury and also serves to determine the further mobility and capacity of the soccer player, as well as providing information about initiation of efficient therapeutic measures. A portable ultrasound unit should, therefore, be part of every sports physician’s equipment in football."
Dr Joost Runzheimer, specialist in orthopedics and sports medicine, who has been active as an association of physicians for many years, points out: "Here, we can count on a mobile device, which offers the same imaging quality and diagnostic information as a normal standing unit. It, therefore, becomes possible to make more precise diagnoses onsite in the stadium or at the team quarters, carry out progress controls, and initiate more specific diagnostic or therapeutic measures. In sports orthopedics, these mobile ultrasound diagnostics increase our options, but does not replace magnetic resonance imaging, which, however, is much more time consuming and not yet available in a portable form."
Heinz Gloor, vice-president and general manager, GE Healthcare Ultrasound & PCD, EMEA, adds: "GE Healthcare has redefined ultrasound examinations with the LOGIQ Book XP. With this miniaturised device, doctors can now carry out examinations regardless of environmental conditions."
In addition to the improved initial diagnosis in the field using GE Healthcare’s portable ultrasound equipment, regular medical check-ups can naturally also help to reduce the basic risk of injury for top sportsmen and women. Annual medical check-ups in sports medicine have become compulsory for athletes by many sports organisations, such as for example in the DFB (German Football Association). They serve to detect diseases and injuries as early as possible and then to give appropriate recommendations to the athletes on adapting their training units. Moreover, the overall development of each athlete’s personal performance and potential is examined using a standardised procedure.
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, performance improvement, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform and treat disease, so their patients can live their lives to the fullest.
GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases, and other conditions earlier. The vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention.
Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $ 15 billion unit of General Electric Company. Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 43,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries.
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R Rangaraj
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