Segmentation of the placenta and its vascular tree in Doppler ultrasound for fetal surgery planning


Por: Perera-Bel E, Ceresa M, Torrents-Barrena J, Masoller-Casas N, Valenzuela-Alcaraz BI, Gratacós E, Eixarch E and González Ballester MA

Publicada: 1 nov 2020 Ahead of Print: 1 sep 2020
Resumen:
Purpose Twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS) is a serious condition that occurs in about 10-15% of monochorionic twin pregnancies. In most instances, the blood flow is unevenly distributed throughout the placenta anastomoses leading to the death of both fetuses if no surgical procedure is performed. Fetoscopic laser coagulation is the optimal therapy to considerably improve co-twin prognosis by clogging the abnormal anastomoses. Notwithstanding progress in recent years, TTTS surgery is highly risky. Computer-assisted planning of the intervention can thus improve the outcome. Methods In this work, we implement a GPU-accelerated random walker (RW) algorithm to detect the placenta, both umbilical cord insertions and the placental vasculature from Doppler ultrasound (US). Placenta and background seeds are manually initialized in 10-20 slices (out of 245). Vessels are automatically initialized in the same slices by means of Otsu thresholding. The RW finds the boundaries of the placenta and reconstructs the vasculature. Results We evaluate our semiautomatic method in 5 monochorionic and 24 singleton pregnancies. Although satisfactory performance is achieved on placenta segmentation (Dice >= 84.0%), some vascular connections are still neglected due to the presence of US reverberation artifacts (Dice >= 56.9%). We also compared inter-user variability and obtained Dice coefficients of >= 76.8% and >= 97.42% for placenta and vasculature, respectively. After a 3-min manual initialization, our GPU approach speeds the computation 10.6 times compared to the CPU. Conclusions Our semiautomatic method provides a near real-time user experience and requires short training without compromising the segmentation accuracy. A powerful approach is thus presented to rapidly plan the fetoscope insertion point ahead of TTTS surgery.

Filiaciones:
Perera-Bel E:
 Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.

Ceresa M:
 Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

Torrents-Barrena J:
 Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

Masoller-Casas N:
 BCNatal, Fetal Medicine Research Center (Hospital Clínic and Hospital Sant Joan de Déu), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

 Institut d'investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Barcelona, Spain

 Centre for Biomedical Research on Rare Diseases (CIBER-ER), Madrid, Spain

Valenzuela-Alcaraz BI:
 BCNatal, Fetal Medicine Research Center (Hospital Clínic and Hospital Sant Joan de Déu), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

 Institut d'investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Barcelona, Spain

 Centre for Biomedical Research on Rare Diseases (CIBER-ER), Madrid, Spain

Gratacós E:
 BCNatal, Fetal Medicine Research Center (Hospital Clínic and Hospital Sant Joan de Déu), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

 Institut d'investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Barcelona, Spain

 Centre for Biomedical Research on Rare Diseases (CIBER-ER), Madrid, Spain

Eixarch E:
 BCNatal, Fetal Medicine Research Center (Hospital Clínic and Hospital Sant Joan de Déu), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

 Institut d'investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), Barcelona, Spain

 Centre for Biomedical Research on Rare Diseases (CIBER-ER), Madrid, Spain

González Ballester MA:
 Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

 ICREA, Barcelona, Spain
ISSN: 18616410





International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery
Editorial
SPRINGER HEIDELBERG, TIERGARTENSTRASSE 17, D-69121 HEIDELBERG, GERMANY, Alemania
Tipo de documento: Article
Volumen: 15 Número: 11
Páginas: 1869-1879
WOS Id: 000571022700001
ID de PubMed: 32951100
imagen Green Accepted

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