text: The automatic analysis of ultrasound sequences can substantially improve the efficiency of clinical diagnosis. In this work we present our attempt to automate the challenging task of measuring the vascular diameter of the fet al abdominal aorta from ultrasound images. We propose a neural network architecture consisting of three blocks: a convolutional layer for the extraction of imaging features, a Convolution Gated Recurrent Unit (C-GRU) for enforcing the temporal coherence across video frames and exploiting the temporal redundancy of a signal, and a regularized loss function, called , to impose our prior knowledge about the periodicity of the observed signal. We present experimental evidence suggesting that the proposed architecture can reach an accuracy substantially superior to previously proposed methods, providing an average reduction of the mean squared error from @math (state-of-art) to @math , and a relative error reduction from @math to @math . The mean execution speed of the proposed approach of 289 frames per second makes it suitable for real time clinical use.
  @cite_14: The determination of the wall thickness [intima–media thickness (IMT)], the delineation of the atherosclerotic carotid plaque, the measurement of the diameter in the common carotid artery (CCA), as well as the grading of its stenosis are important for the evaluation of the atherosclerosis disease. All these measurements are also considered to be significant markers for the clinical evaluation of the risk of stroke. A number of CCA segmentation techniques have been proposed in the last few years either for the segmentation of the intima–media complex (IMC), the lumen of the CCA, or for the atherosclerotic carotid plaque from ultrasound images or videos of the CCA. The present review study proposes and discusses the methods and systems introduced so far in the literature for performing automated or semi-automated segmentation in ultrasound images or videos of the CCA. These are based on edge detection, active contours, level sets, dynamic programming, local statistics, Hough transform, statistical modeling, neural networks, and an integration of the above methods. Furthermore, the performance of these systems is evaluated and discussed based on various evaluation metrics. We finally propose the best performing method that can be used for the segmentation of the IMC and the atherosclerotic carotid plaque in ultrasound images and videos. We end the present review study with a discussion of the different image and video CCA segmentation techniques, future perspectives, and further extension of these techniques to ultrasound video segmentation and wall tracking of the CCA. Future work on the segmentation of the CCA will be focused on the development of integrated segmentation systems for the complete segmentation of the CCA as well as the segmentation and motion analysis of the plaque and or the IMC from ultrasound video sequences of the CCA. These systems will improve the evaluation, follow up, and treatment of patients affected by advanced atherosclerosis disease conditions.
  @cite_11: Last 10 years have witnessed the growth of many computer applications for the segmentation of the vessel wall in ultrasound imaging. Epidemiological studies showed that the thickness of the major arteries is an early and effective marker of onset of cardiovascular diseases. Ultrasound imaging, being real-time, economic, reliable, safe, and now seems to become a standard in vascular assessment methodology. This review is an attempt to discuss the most performing methodologies that have been developed so far to perform computer-based segmentation and intima-media thickness (IMT) measurement of the carotid arteries in ultrasound images. First we will present the rationale and the clinical relevance of computer-based measurements in clinical practice, followed by the challenges that one has to face when approaching the segmentation of ultrasound vascular images. The core of the paper is the presentation, discussion, benchmarking and evaluation of different segmentation techniques, including: edge-detection, active contours, dynamic programming, local statistics, Hough transform, statistical modeling, and integration of these approaches. Also, we will discuss and compare the different performance metrics that have been proposed and used to perform the validation. Best performing user-dependent techniques show an average IMT measurement error of about [email protected] when compared to human tracings [57], whereas completely automated techniques show errors of about [email protected] The review ends with a discussion about the current standards in carotid wall segmentation and in an overview of the future perspectives, which may include the adoption of advanced and intelligent strategies to let the computer technique measure the IMT in the image portion where measurement is more reliable.
summary: The interest for measuring the diameter and intima-media thickness (IMT) of major vessels has stemmed from its importance as biomarker of hypertension damage and atherosclerosis in adults. Typically, the IMT is assessed on the carotid artery by identifying its lumen and the different layers of its wall on high resolution US images. The improvements provided by the design of semi-automatic and automatic methods based mainly on the image intensity profile, distribution and gradients analysis, and more recently on active contours. For a comprehensive review of these classical methods we refer the reader to @cite_11 and @cite_14 . In the prenatal setting, the lower image quality, due to the need of imaging deeper in the mother's womb and by the movement of the fetus, makes the measurement of a IMT biomarker, although measured on the abdominal aorta, challenging.