Automated 3D ultrasound image analysis for first trimester assessment of fetal health
Open accessAbstract
The first trimester fetal ultrasound scan is important to confirm fetal viability, to estimate the gestational age of the fetus, and to detect fetal anomalies early in pregnancy. First trimester ultrasound images have a different appearance than for the second trimester scan, reflecting the different stage of fetal development. There is limited literature on automation of image-based assessment for this earlier trimester, and most of the literature is focused on one specific fetal anatomy. In this paper, we consider automation to support first trimester fetal assessment of multiple fetal anatomies including both visualization and the measurements from a single 3D ultrasound scan. We present a deep learning and image processing solution (i) to perform semantic segmentation of the whole fetus, (ii) to estimate plane orientation for standard biometry views, (iii) to localize and automatically estimate biometry, and (iv) to detect fetal limbs from a 3D first trimester volume. Computational analysis methods were built using a real-world dataset ( n = 44 volumes). An evaluation on a further independent clinical dataset ( n = 21 volumes) showed that the automated methods approached human expert assessment of a 3D volume.
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A limitation of first trimester AI models was difficulty assessing fetal limbs due to small anatomy and close surroundings.
“Limitations could be uncovered when assessing fetal limbs due to its small anatomy and close surroundings [136,137,138]”
From Evolving the Era of 5D Ultrasound? A Systematic Literature Review on the Applications for Artificial Intelligence Ultrasound Imaging in Obstetrics and Gynecology (2023) · cites this paper as [137]
Section 2.7 says automatic limb detection is challenging because limbs are small and their boundaries matter; Section 3.6 reports relatively low detection rates. The paper does not identify close surroundings as a reason for that difficulty. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredOne study focused on three-dimensional ultrasound in the first trimester to measure fetal biometry and detect the presence of fetal limbs.
“One study focused on three-dimensional ultrasound in the first trimester to measure fetal biometry and to detect the presence of fetal limbs 22”
From Artificial intelligence in obstetric ultrasound: A scoping review. (2023) · cites this paper as [22]
Ryou et al. and Yang et al. proposed a model for the assessment of the whole fetus in 3D volumes.
“and Ryou et al. and Yang et al. proposed a model for the assessment of the whole fetus in 3D volumes [137,138].”
A potential benefit of first trimester AI models was reduced workload.
“and reduced workload [133,135,136,137].”
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- Authors
- Ryou, H., Yaqub, M., Cavallaro, A., Papageorghiou, A. T., & Alison Noble, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Ryou, Hosuk
- Venue
- Physics in Medicine & Biology
- Publisher
- IOP Publishing
- Published
- 2019-09-01
- Volume
- 64
- Issue
- 18
- Pages
- 185010
- ISSN
- 0031-9155 (ISSN-L)
- 1361-6560
- OpenAlex
- W2969129620
- Cited by
- 44
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 5
- FWCI
- 2.46
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Physics in Medicine and Biology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute for Health and Care Research
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/R013853/1, EP/L505316/1)
- NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Medical Image Segmentation Techniques
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Prenatal Screening and Diagnostics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
- Keywords
- 3D ultrasound, fetal biometry, semantic segmentation, gestational age estimation, fetal anomaly detection, fetal viability
- MeSH terms
- Abdomen, Algorithms, Female, Fetus, Gestational Age, Head, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Trimester, First, Ultrasonography, Prenatal, Imaging, Three-Dimensional, Fetal Development
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