A new scanning training device has been developed by Cardiff University, with experts claiming it could help provide a significant boost to the worldwide availability of ultrasound services.
The ScanTrainer has been developed as a means of providing trainees with the sensation of scanning a real patient using 3D imaging, the BBC reports.
Professor Nazar Amso from Cardiff's School of Medicine described the device as "an innovative, revolutionary, world class training simulator".
Explaining the reasoning behind the project, he added: "Back in 2004, we realised that there's a big barrier to the training of sonographers, not enough trainers and not enough time and opportunity for trainees to engage with patients.
"Lack of sonographers is a global problem, especially in the developing world where they're practically non-existent. So this device is going to change the availability of ultrasound worldwide."
The development of the new device was partly funded by the Welsh Assembly government and it follows a warning by the Society and College of Radiographers in 2009 that the need for an increase in the number of sonographers.
Data produced in November last year had shown a trebling of the number of patients waiting for diagnostic tests in the previous two years.
The new device may help reverse this trend and have a similar effect across the world, which could have a wide array of positive outcomes, such as more pre-natal scanning to help plan childbirths and prepare for any problems that look likely to occur, like breech births.
Carried out using soundwaves, sonograms have a number of other uses in addition to monitoring the progress of gestation. These include spotting heart problems, examine organs such as kidneys and the liver, or help a surgeon carrying out a biopsy.
There are three kinds of ultrasound scan, external - where the probe is placed on the skin, internal - where it is placed inside an orifice, plus endoscopic - where it is attached to a small cord and inserted deeper into the body.
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