FDA clears new point-of-care ultrasound system from Butterfly Network

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the newest point-of-care ultrasound system from Butterfly Network, the Burlington, Massachusetts, company announced Monday.

Butterfly iQ3 is the third generation of its semiconductor-based, single-probe, whole-body scanner. Features will include a new ergonomic design, faster data-processing speeds and optimized image resolution.

Leaders plan to reveal further details about the system on Thursday at the 42nd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, taking place in San Francisco.

Shares of the publicly traded company—founded in 2011 by scientist and entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg, PhD—were up 22% Monday on news of the FDA clearance.  

Marty Stempniak

Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic. 

Around the web

The new F-18 flurpiridaz radiotracer is expected to help drive cardiac PET growth, but it requires waiting between rest and stress scans. Software from MultiFunctional Imaging can help care teams combat that problem.

News of an incident is a stark reminder that healthcare workers and patients aren’t the only ones who need to be aware around MRI suites.

The ACR hopes these changes, including the addition of diagnostic performance feedback, will help reduce the number of patients with incidental nodules lost to follow-up each year.