Sonora Medical Systems, of Longmont, Colo., recently issued a warning to hospitals informing them that at least one third-party ultrasound service company has illegally modified its FirstCall probe testing software.

The software modifications may cause significant damage to the probes being tested, and hospitals would be told that the affected probes would need replacing, Sonora warned.

“Hospitals should not allow third parties to test their probes with a FirstCall device unless that third party has a Sonora Certificate that validates the software they are using along with a current calibration sticker on the device itself,” said G. Wayne Moore, president and CEO of Sonora.

According to Sonora, the illegal changes were attempts to test probe models that have never been validated by the Sonora engineering department.

The company has alerted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to the issue.