Key dates in the creation of Echosens

The initial developments in transient elastography took place between 1998 and 2000 during Laurent Sandrin’s doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor Mathias Fink at LOA (ESPCI, Paris): ‘Seismic imaging of the human body: from acoustic sensors to ultra-fast imaging’.

This thesis led to the following developments:

• 1D transient elastography – using a single-element ultrasonic transducer
• The development of an ultra-fast ultrasonic imager applied to 2D transient elastography and flow imaging

Pr Mathias Fink

Laurent Sandrin

Filing of the original patent application for transient elastography (FR9903157 / US6770033) in March 1999. Inventors: Mathias Fink, Laurent Sandrin, Stefan Catheline, Mickael Tanter.

First presentation of transient elastography at the IUS (International Ultrasonics Symposium) in Berlin, Germany, in March 1999.

First publication on transient elastography in the journal Ultrasonic Imaging in October 1999. The technique was then called ‘Time-Resolved Pulsed Elastography’.

Presentations on transient elastography at the IUS (International Ultrasonics Symposium) conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA in 2000.

Presentation of transient elastography at the first edition of the ITEC (International Tissue Elasticity Conference) conference organised by Jonathan Ophir in Niagara Falls (Ontario, Canada) in 2002.

Academic publications:

• Sandrin, L., S. Catheline, M. Tanter, X. Hennequin, and M. Fink. ‘Time-Resolved Pulsed Elastography with Ultrafast Ultrasonic Imaging.’ Ultrasonic Imaging 21, no. 4 (October 1999): 259-72. https://doi.org/10.1177/016173469902100402Manneville, S., L. Sandrin, and M. Fink. ‘Investigating a Stretched Vortex with Ultrafast Two-Dimensional Ultrasonic Speckle Velocimetry.’ Physics of Fluids 13, no. 6 (1 June 2001): 1683–90. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1370388.
• Sandrin, Laurent, Sébastien Manneville, and Mathias Fink. ‘Ultrafast Two-Dimensional Ultrasonic Speckle Velocimetry: A Tool in Flow Imaging.’ Applied Physics Letters 78, no. 8 (19 February 2001): 1155–57. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1350622.
  Sandrin, Laurent, Mickael Tanter, Jean-Luc Gennisson, Stefan Catheline, and Mathias Fink. ‘Shear Elasticity Probe for Soft Tissues with 1-D Transient Elastography.’ 49, no. 4 (2002).
• Sandrin, L., M. Tanter, S. Catheline, and M. Fink. ‘Shear Modulus Imaging with 2-D Transient Elastography.’ IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control 49, no. 4 (April 2002): 426–35. https://doi.org/10.1109/58.996560.
• Sandrin, Laurent, Didier Cassereau, and Mathias Fink. ‘The Role of the Coupling Term in Transient Elastography.’ The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 115, no. 1 (1 January 2004): 73–83. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.1635412.

Echosens was founded in June 2001 by Laurent Sandrin, Bertrand Fourquet, Sylvain Yon and Jean-Michel Hasquenoph.

Development became completely independent from the original academic laboratory.

A licence agreement for the original transient elastography patent was signed with the inventors.

The potential application for measuring liver fibrosis was identified following a meeting with doctors from the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris (IMM, Paris, France): Frédéric Mal, Robert Palau and Brice Gayet, in June 2001.

The pilot trial at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris began in September 2001.

The electronic, mechanical and software developments of the first prototype called ‘Elastometer’, the precursor to FibroScan, took place.

Numerous improvements were made to enable reliable measurement of liver elasticity in vivo.

These improvements gave rise to the technology behind FibroScan’s success: ‘vibration controlled transient elastography’ (VCTE) and the filing of the original patent application for VCTE (FR0210104 / US7578789) in August 2002. Inventors: Laurent Sandrin and Jean-Michel Hasquenoph.

Unlike traditional transient elastography, VCTE allows for standardisation of measurements by controlling the frequency of shear waves and the force applied to the patient, and by implementing proprietary algorithms.

The first multicentre trial began in 2002 in four French hospitals under the direction of Professor Michel Beaugrand:

• Jean Verdier Hospital, Bondy, France
• Beaujon Hospital, Clichy, France
• Henri Mondor Hospital, Créteil, France
• Haut Lévêque Hospital, Pessac, France

The very first FibroScan, the 502, was unveiled at the EASL Congress in Geneva in July 2003. It went on sale at the end of 2003 after obtaining CE marking.

First scientific publication on FibroScan in Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology:

Sandrin, Laurent, Bertrand Fourquet, Jean-Michel Hasquenoph, Sylvain Yon, Céline Fournier, Frédéric Mal, Christos Christidis, et al. « Transient Elastography: A New Noninvasive Method for Assessment of Hepatic Fibrosis ». Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology 29, no 12 (décembre 2003): 1705 13.

A pioneer in tissue elasticity measurement using VCTE, Echosens was also the first company to market a device in 2010 for measuring ultrasound attenuation in the liver, known as CAP, for the assessment of hepatic steatosis.

Since 2011, Echosens has also been developing composite biomarkers, called scores, combining physical biomarkers and blood biomarkers, with a view to improving the diagnostic performance of its products and services.

Since their launch in 2003, FibroScan and VCTE have been the subject of more than 5,500 publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Echosens continues to develop its technologies with a view to improving the service provided to patients and doctors.

FibroScan^®, VCTE™ and CAP™ are registered trademarks of Echosens SA, Paris, France