Uni launches knee image tech firm

The DKI aims to provide doctors with more image detail

Specialist software to show orthopaedic surgeons the muscle and tissue of damaged knees is being developed at Cardiff University.

A spin-off company, Demasq Ltd, has been launched to produce the technology by next year, based on work by one of the university's bioscience professors.

The imaging software aims to combine the detail provided by an MRI scanner with conventional X-rays.

Knee specialists in Cardiff and the US have been advising on the research.

The soft tissues which have been invisible in the past are exactly the ones where most disease processes occur Prof Hechmi Toumi

The Degenerative Knee Indicator (DKI) aims to provide medical teams with a combination of tissue detail - which can be achieved by a more expensive MRI scanner - with the bone detail of an X-ray.

Ordinary X-rays can show doctors a picture of what is happening to the knee bone but do not show the joint's surface or the soft tissue surrounding it.

The new imagery looks to enhance X-rays to show cartilage and other non-bony structures.

'Revolutionary method'

Prof Hechmi Toumi, on whose work at the muscle-bone-tendon unit of Cardiff University's School of Biosciences the project is based, said it promised "to alter our perception of the conventional use of X-rays".

He said the DKI enabled doctors to examine the health of soft tissues and aimed to provide the technology at lower cost.

"The soft tissues which have been invisible in the past are exactly the ones where most disease processes occur," he said.

Prof Toumi, who is a former French international long jumper, has been advised in his work by University Hospital of Wales surgeon and knee specialist Prof John Fairclough and doctors in the United States.

Prof Fairclough said it offered the medical world "a revolutionary method" of viewing conventional X-rays.

"This exciting invention will potentially offer that rare combination of providing new information to clinicians to help patients while potentially reducing the cost to the health service," he said.

Demasq has been formed out of a link-up with Biofusion, a development company which has partnerships with university teams at Cardiff and Sheffield.

David Baynes, chief executive of Biofusion said they were "very excited" about the technology and had invested an initial £450,000 ahead of the product's launch next year.

He said it had the "potential to revolutionise the diagnosis of knee problems for patients".