Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

Robust border enhancement and detection for measurement of fetal nuchal translucency in ultrasound images

  • Special Issue
  • Published:
Medical & Biological Engineering & Computing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Ultrasonic measurement of nuchal translucency (NT) thickness in the first trimester of pregnancy has recently been proposed as the most useful marker in early screening for fetal chromosomal abnormalities. However, manual tracing of the two echogenic lines in the image, using on-screen calipers, is hampered by weak edges, together with noise and other artifacts, leading to variable results and inefficiency. Our semi-automatic method of fetal NT thickness measurement uses a coherence-enhancing diffusion filter to enhance the border and reduce noise, followed by detection of the NT by minimization of a cost function, that combines intensity, edge strength and continuity, using dynamic programming. This method has been validated by determining the correlation between manual and semi-automatic measurements.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Abd-Elmoniem KZ, Youssef AM, Kadah YM (2002) Real-time speckle reduction and coherence enhancement in ultrasound imaging via nonlinear anisotropic diffusion. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 49(9):997–1014

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Alfred A (2005) Technical aspects of nuchal translucency measurement. Semin Perinatol 29(6):376–379

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Bebbington M, Wilson RD, Johnson MP (2006) Detection of congenital heart disease in the first trimester of pregnancy. Prog Pediatr Cardiol 22(1):3–8

    Google Scholar 

  4. Bernadino F, Cardoso R, Montenegro N, Bernardes J, Marques de Sa J (1998) Semiautomated ultrasonographic measurement of fetal nuchal translucency using a computer software tool. Ultrasound Med Biol 24(1):51–54

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Cheng D, Schmidt-Trucksaess A, Cheng K, Burkhardt H (2002) Using snakes to detect the intimal and adventitial layers of the common carotid artery wall in sonographic images. Comput Methods Programs Biomed 67(1):27–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Chinrungrueng C, Suvichakorn A (2001) Fast edge-preserving noise reduction for ultrasound images. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 48(3):849–854

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Fong KW, Toi A, Salem S, Hornberger LK, Chitayat D, Keating SJ, McAuliffe F, Johnson JA (2004) Detection of fetal structural abnormalities with US during early pregnancy. Radiographics 24(1):157–174

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Gustavsson T, Liang Q, Wendelhag I, Wilkstrand J (1994) A dynamic programming procedure for automated ultrasonic measurement of the carotid artery. IEEE Comput Cardiol, pp 297–300

  9. Hyett J, Moscosco G, Nicolaides KH (1995) Cardiac defects in 1st trimester fetus with trisomy 18. Fetal Diag Ther 10(6):381–386

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Liang Q, Wendelhag I, Wilkstrand J, Gustavsson T (2000) A multiscale dynamic programming procedure for boundary detection in ultrasonic artery images. IEEE Trans Med Imaging 19(2):127–142

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Loizou CP, Pattichis CS, Pantziaris M, Tyllis T, Nicolaides A (2007) Snakes based segmentation of the common carotid artery intima media. Med Biol Eng Comput 45(1):35–49

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Nicolaides KH, Sebire N, Snijders R (1999) The 11–14 week scan: the diagnosis of fetal abnormalities. Parthenon Publishing, New York

    Google Scholar 

  13. Perona P, Malik J (1990) Scale space and edge detection using anisotropic diffusion. IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell 12(7):629–639

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Snijders RJ, Noble P, Sebire N, Souka A, Nicolaides KH (1998) UK multicentre project on assessment of risk of trisomy 21 by maternal age and fetal nuchal translucency thickness at 10–14 weeks of gestation. Lancet 352(9125):343–346

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Souka AP, Krampl E, Bakalis S, Heath V, Nicolaides KH (2001) Outcome of pregnancy in chromosomally normal fetuses with increased nuchal translucency in the first trimester. Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol 18(1):9–17

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Weickert J (1999) Coherence-enhancing diffusion filtering. Int J Comput Vis 31(2–3):111–127

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Wendelhag I, Liang Q, Gustavson T, Wilkstrand J (1997) A new automated computerized analyzing system simplifies readings and reduces the variability in ultrasound measurement of intima-media thickness. Stroke 28(11):2195–2200

    Google Scholar 

  18. Williams DJ, Shah M (1992) A fast algorithm for active contours and curvature estimation. CVGIP Image Underst 55(1):14–26

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  19. Zosmer N, Souter VL, Chan CS, Huggon IC, Nicolaides KH (1999) Early diagnosis of major cardiac defects in chromosomally normal fetuses with increased nuchal translucency. Br J Obstet Gynaecol 106(8):829–833

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work is financially supported by the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MOE), the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) and the Ministry of Labor (MOLAB) through the fostering project of the Lab of Excellency, and by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP), under the Real Time Molecular Imaging program. We would like to thank the Medison Co. Ltd. for providing ultrasound image datasets for our experiments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea

    Yu-Bu Lee, Min-Jeong Kim & Myoung-Hee Kim

  2. Center for Computer Graphics and Virtual Reality, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea

    Myoung-Hee Kim

Authors
  1. Yu-Bu Lee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Min-Jeong Kim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Myoung-Hee Kim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Myoung-Hee Kim.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lee, YB., Kim, MJ. & Kim, MH. Robust border enhancement and detection for measurement of fetal nuchal translucency in ultrasound images. Med Bio Eng Comput 45, 1143–1152 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-007-0225-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-007-0225-7

Keywords