Confident head circumference measurement from ultrasound with real-time feedback for sonographers

Manual estimation of fetal Head Circumference (HC) from Ultrasound (US) is a key biometric for monitoring the healthy development of fetuses. Unfortunately, such measurements are subject to large inter-observer variability, resulting in low early-detection rates of fetal abnormalities. To address this issue, we propose a novel probabilistic Deep Learning approach for real-time automated estimation of fetal HC. This system feeds back statistics on measurement robustness to inform users how confident a deep neural network is in evaluating suitable views acquired during free-hand ultrasound examination. In real-time scenarios, this approach may be exploited to guide operators to scan planes that are as close as possible to the underlying distribution of training images, for the purpose of improving inter-operator consistency. We train on freehand ultrasound data from over 2000 subjects (2848 training/540 test) and show that our method is able to predict HC measurements within 1.81±1.65 mm deviation from the ground truth, with 50% of the test images fully contained within the predicted confidence margins, and an average of 1.82±1.78 mm deviation from the margin for the remaining cases that are not fully contained

Automatic image quality assessment and measurement of fetal head in two-dimensional ultrasound image

Owing to the inconsistent image quality existing in routine obstetric ultrasound (US) scans that leads to a large intraobserver and interobserver variability, the aim of this study is to develop a quality-assured, fully automated US fetal head measurement system. A texton-based fetal head segmentation is used as a prerequi- site step to obtain the head region. Textons are calculated using a filter bank designed specific for US fetal head structure. Both shape- and anatomic-based features calculated from the segmented head region are then fed into a random forest classifier to determine the quality of the image (e.g., whether the image is acquired from a correct imaging plane), from which fetal head measurements [biparietal diameter (BPD), occipital–frontal diam- eter (OFD), and head circumference (HC)] are derived. The experimental results show a good performance of our method for US quality assessment and fetal head measurements. The overall precision for automatic image quality assessment is 95.24% with 87.5% sensitivity and 100% specificity, while segmentation performance shows 99.27% (`0.26) of accuracy, 97.07% (`2.3) of sensitivity, 2.23 mm (`0.74) of the maximum symmetric contour distance, and 0.84 mm (`0.28) of the average symmetric contour distance. The statistical analysis results using paired t-test and Bland–Altman plots analysis indicate that the 95% limits of agreement for inter observer variability between the automated measurements and the senior expert measurements are 2.7 mm of BPD, 5.8 mm of OFD, and 10.4 mm of HC, whereas the mean differences are −0.038 ` 1.38 mm, −0.20 ` 2.98 mm, and −0.72 ` 5.36 mm, respectively. These narrow 95% limits of agreements indicate a good level of consistency between the automated and the senior expert’s measurements

Segmentation of fetal 2D images with deep learning: a review

Image segmentation plays a vital role in providing sustainable medical care in this evolving biomedical image processing technology. Nowadays, it is considered one of the most important research directions in the computer vision field. Since the last decade, deep learning-based medical image processing has become a research hotspot due to its exceptional performance. In this paper, we present a review of different deep learning techniques used to segment fetal 2D images. First, we explain the basic ideas of each approach and then thoroughly investigate the methods used for the segmentation of fetal images. Secondly, the results and accuracy of different approaches are also discussed. The dataset details used for assessing the performance of the respective method are also documented. Based on the review studies, the challenges and future work are also pointed out at the end. As a result, it is shown that deep learning techniques are very effective in the segmentation of fetal 2D images.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A regression framework to head-circumference delineation from US fetal images

Background and Objectives: Measuring head-circumference (HC) length from ultrasound (US) images is a crucial clinical task to assess fetus growth. To lower intra- and inter-operator variability in HC length measuring, several computer-assisted solutions have been proposed in the years. Recently, a large number of deep-learning approaches is addressing the problem of HC delineation through the segmentation of the whole fetal head via convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Since the task is a edge-delineation problem, we propose a different strategy based on regression CNNs. Methods: The proposed framework consists of a region-proposal CNN for head localization and centering, and a regression CNN for accurately delineate the HC. The first CNN is trained exploiting transfer learning, while we propose a training strategy for the regression CNN based on distance fields. Results: The framework was tested on the HC18 Challenge dataset, which consists of 999 training and 335 testing images. A mean absolute difference of 1.90 ( ± 1.76) mm and a Dice similarity coefficient of 97.75 ( ± 1.32) % were achieved, overcoming approaches in the literature. Conclusions: The experimental results showed the effectiveness of the proposed framework, proving its potential in supporting clinicians during the clinical practice

Automatic Detection of Fetal Head and Fetal Measurement on Birth Time Estimation

Fetal biometry in ultrasound (USG) is a routine activity that can be used to determine the gestational age of a baby. Accuracy is needed when measurements are made. However, the low quality of ultrasound images and manual measurement that takes a long time and give rise to many different variations of values from each doctor or sonographer. Thus the measurement results obtained are less accurate. From these problems, the development of automatic detection and measurement of the fetal head is needed. One of them is by using a learning-based system method that will carry out the training process using Haar training to get features. The training process with the Haar method uses positive image data as objects and negative images as background. Haar training data that have been obtained, then used to detect fetal head objects automatically. Detection results are then processed to separate the object from the background image, which is then carried out the segmentation process to obtain the fetal head and fetal femur. Then the segmentation method used is Integral Projection to get the fetal head circumference and Find Contour to get the fetal femur. The parameters used to determine gestational ages are biparietal diameter and femur length. Based on experiments that have been done, obtained an accuracy rate of 97.77% using the proposed method for estimating gestational age automatically. Measurements are obtained by comparing the results of the doctor's diagnosis using manual measurements on an ultrasound machine

Automatic Image Analysis and Recognition for Ultrasound Diagnosis and Treatment in Cardiac, Obstetrics and Radiology

Ultrasound image analysis and recognition techniques for improving workflow in diagnosis and treatment are introduced. Fully automatic techniques for applications of cardiac plane extraction, foetal weight measurement and ultrasound-CT image registration for liver surgery navigation are included. For standard plane extraction in 3D cardiac ultrasound, multiple cardiac landmarks defined in ultrasound cardiac examination guidelines are detected and localized by a Hough-forest-based detector, and by six standard cardiac planes, cardiac diagnosis is extracted following the guideline. For automatic foetal weight measurement, biparietal diameter (BPD), femur length (FL) and abdominal circumference (AC) are estimated by segmenting corresponding organs and regions from foetal ultrasound images. For ultrasound-CT liver image registration, initial alignment is obtained by localizing a corresponding portal vein branch from an intraoperative ultrasound and preoperative CT image pair. Then portal vein regions of the ultrasound-CT image pair are extracted by a machine learning method and are used for image registration

Machine Learning in Fetal Cardiology: What to Expect

In fetal cardiology, imaging (especially echocardiography) has demonstrated to help in the diagnosis and monitoring of fetuses with a compromised cardiovascular system potentially associated with several fetal conditions. Different ultrasound approaches are currently used to evaluate fetal cardiac structure and function, including conventional 2-D imaging and M-mode and tissue Doppler imaging among others. However, assessment of the fetal heart is still challenging mainly due to involuntary movements of the fetus, the small size of the heart, and the lack of expertise in fetal echocardiography of some sonographers. Therefore, the use of new technologies to improve the primary acquired images, to help extract measurements, or to aid in the diagnosis of cardiac abnormalities is of great importance for optimal assessment of the fetal heart. Machine leaning (ML) is a computer science discipline focused on teaching a computer to perform tasks with specific goals without explicitly programming the rules on how to perform this task. In this review we provide a brief overview on the potential of ML techniques to improve the evaluation of fetal cardiac function by optimizing image acquisition and quantification/segmentation, as well as aid in improving the prenatal diagnoses of fetal cardiac remodeling and abnormalities

Deteksi Otomatis Bidang Kepala Janin dari Citra Ultrasonografi 2 Dimensi

Modalitas pencitraan primer untuk untuk pemeriksaan anatomi dan fisiologi janin adalah alat ultrasonografi (USG) medis 2 dimensi mengingat harganya yang murah, ketersediaan yang melimpah, kemampuan realtime, dan tidak adanya bahaya radiasi. Head Circumference (HC) merupakan parameter pengukuran biometri janin yang dianalisa untuk mengetahui perkembangan janin secara kuantitatif dengan menggunakan mesin USG. Pada praktik klinis, karena rasio signal-to-noise yang rendah, klinisi seringkali mengalami kesulitan untuk mengenali bidang janin dengan tepat. Lebih dari itu, klinisi kesulitan untuk membuat elips yang paling mendekati hanya dengan tiga titik parameter minor dan mayor yang disediakan mesin USG. Proses deteksi dan pengukuran HC secara manual oleh klinisi membutuhkan waktu yang cukup lama dan akurasinya sangat bergantung dengan pengalaman dan kemampuan klinisi. Penelitian mengenai deteksi dan pengukuran otomatis HC sedang menjadi bidang penelitian yang cukup aktif. Dalam penelitian ini diajukan sebuah sistem deteksi otomatis untuk HC. Metode Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) diajukan untuk melakukan klasifikasi bidang elips janin dari jaringan ibu maupun jaringan janin lainnya. CNN dipekerjakan untuk pixel-wise classification citra ke dalam kelas bidang janin, maternal tissue, ataupun background. Pada penelitian ini, dari 13 citra uji, didapatkan rata rata akurasi segmentasi semantik sebesar 0.76