The UI Octoson ultrasound system is an example of an internationally significant medical innovation developed in Australia. It was the culmination of research undertaken during the 1960s by a team at the Commonwealth Acoustic Laboratories in Sydney (later called the Ultrasonics Institute). At the time it was realised that using X-rays to examine unborn babies might cause them harm, and that ultrasonic imaging would be safer. However, ultrasound pictures were not clear enough to detect abnormalities in foetuses. The Ultrasonics Institute team made a technical breakthrough called 'grey scale imaging' and produced images showing such good detail that experts were astounded.
To obtain good images with the team's first apparatus, the patient had to lie very still. Further research by the team resulted in the Octoson, which reduced the time needed to take an ultrasound picture from 10 seconds to 1 second. The Octoson could be used to examine not only foetuses, breasts and internal organs, but also newborn babies, who are not very good at holding still.
The Institute built a prototype in 1974, and in 1975 a new company, Ausonics Pty Ltd, was formed to convert the prototype into a commercial version. Eventually over 200 Octosons were sold around the world. At $A100,000 per unit, this represented considerable export income for Australia.
In 1997, when the Royal Hospital for Women (RHW) moved from Paddington to Randwick, the hospital's UI Octoson was offered to the Powerhouse Museum. This machine had been in use for nearly twenty years, and many a Sydney woman will remember lying on its large 'water bed' while an ultrasound picture was taken of her unborn baby. The machine from RHW is particularly significant because it was one of two machines on which all the original Octoson clinical trials were conducted in the mid 1970s.
Megan Hicks, 1997
This system was designed by the Ultrasonics Institute, 126 Greville Street, Chatswood NSW.
It was made by Ausonics Pty Ltd, 16 Mars Road, Lane Cove NSW, in 1975.
This example of the UI Octoson was used in the Medical Imaging Department of the Royal Hospital for Women, Oxford Street, Paddington. It was one of two units used for clinical trials of the apparatus in 1974-5. Until it was decommissioned in 1992 because of maintenance problems, it was used as a general purpose scanner for obstetric, gynaecological, upper abdominal, breast, testis and neonatal brain examinations.
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