Fetal brain US

Fetal ultrasound (US) is the standard modality for assessing fetal brain development in clinical practice. Though ultrasound can provide relatively high resolution, it is subject to severe artefacts. Traditional methods for assessment of fetal brain development rely on measurements performed on 2D US scans, where a pre-defined plane is manually selected by the radiographer, and several 2D measurements are taken to assess the growth of the fetal head. If a brain abnormality is suspected, fetal MRI is performed to confirm the finding.

Recent advances in acquisition of 3D US provide opportunities for development of new quantitative techniques for assessment of fetal brain development using this modality. Fetal brain MRI could serve as a prior or validation tool for quantitative measurements from 3D US. We are therefore developing a method for alignment of fetal brain MRI and 3D US. The results will appear at ISBI 2012.

Relevant publications:

Registration of 3D fetal neurosonography and MRI. M Kuklisova-Murgasova, A Cifor, R Napolitano, A Papageorghiou, G Quaghebeur, MA Rutherford, JV Hajnal, JA Noble, JA Schnabel. Medical Image Analysis 17(8), 2013.

Registration of 3D fetal brain US and MRI. M. Kuklisova-Murgasova, Amalia Cifor, Raffaele Napolitano, Aris Papageorghiou, Gerardine Quaghebeur, J. Alison Noble, Julia A. Schnabel. MICCAI, Nice, 2012.

Towards 3D registration of fetal brain MRI and ultrasound. M. Kuklisova-Murgasova, Gerardine Quaghebeur, Joseph V. Hajnal, J. Alison Noble, Julia A. Schnabel. ISBI, Barcelona, 2012.