Features Based IUGR Diagnosis Using Variational Level Set Method and Classification Using Artificial Neural Networks

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) is the failure of the fetus to achieve his/her intrinsic growth potential. IUGR results in significant perinatal and long-term complications, including the development of insulin resistance/metabolic syndrome in adulthood [5]. Accurate and effective monitoring of fetal growth is one of the key component of prenatal care [3]. Ultrasound evaluation is considered the cornerstone of diagnosis and surveillance of the growth-restricted fetus [2]. Ultrasound measurements play a significant role in obstetrics as an accurate means for the estimation of the fetal age. Several parameters are used as aging parameters, the most important of which are the biparietal diameter (BPD), head circumference (HC), abdominal circumference (AC) and femur length (FL). Serial measurement of these parameters over time is used to determine the fetal condition. Hence, consistency and reproducibility of measurements is an important issue. Consequently the automatic segmentation of anatomical structures in ultrasound imagery is a real challenge due to acoustic interferences (speckle noise) and artifacts which are inherent in these images. In this paper, a novel method is proposed for developing a Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) system for diagnosis and classification of IUGR foetuses. Diagnosis is performed by segmenting and extracting the required foetus features from an ultrasound image, using the Re-initialization free level set with Reaction Diffusion (RD) technique. An artificial neural network (ANN) classifier is developed, the features extracted are provided to the designed ANN model. The ANN then classifies normal and abnormal fetuses based on features provided.