Fetal biometry: a comparison between experienced sonographers and automated measurements

Abstract

Objective. We compared the performance between sonographers and automated fetal biometry measurements (Auto OB) with respect to the following measurements: biparietal diameter (BPD), head circumference (HC), abdominal circumference (AC) and femur length (FL).

Methods. The first set of experiments involved assessing the performance of Auto OB relative to the five sonographers, using 240 images for each user. Each sonographer made measurements in 80 images per anatomy. The second set of experiments compared the performance of Auto OB with respect to the data generated by the five sonographers for inter-observer variability (i.e., sonographers and clinicians) using a set of 10 images per anatomy.

Results. Auto OB correlated well with manual measurements for BPD, HC, AC and FL (r > 0.98, p < 0.001 for all measurements). The errors produced by Auto OB for BPD is 1.46% (σ = 1.74%), where σ denotes standard deviation), for HC is 1.25% (σ = 1.34%), for AC is 3% (σ = 6.16%) and for FL is 3.52% (σ = 3.72%). In general, these errors represent deviations of less than 3 days for fetuses younger than 30 weeks, and less than 7 days for fetuses between 30 and 40 weeks of age.

Conclusion. The measurements produced by Auto OB are comparable to the measurements done by sonographers.

Keywords:

• Fetal biometry
• ultrasound
• computer measurements