Ultrasonographic Estimation of Total Brain Volume: 3D Reliability and 2D Estimation. Enabling Routine Estimation During NICU Admission in the Preterm Infant

Abstract

Objectives: The aim of this study is to explore if manually segmented total brain volume (TBV) from 3D ultrasonography (US) is comparable to TBV estimated by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We then wanted to test 2D based TBV estimation obtained through three linear axes which would enable monitoring brain growth in the preterm infant during admission.Methods: We included very low birth weight preterm infants admitted to our neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) with normal neuroimaging findings. We measured biparietal diameter, anteroposterior axis, vertical axis from US and MRI and TBV from both MRI and 3D US. We calculated intra- and interobserver agreement within and between techniques using the intraclass correlation coefficient and Bland-Altman methodology. We then developed a multilevel prediction model of TBV based on linear measurements from both US and MRI, compared them and explored how they changed with increasing age. The multilevel prediction model for TBV from linear measures was tested for internal and external validity and we developed a reference table for ease of prediction of TBV.Results: We used measurements obtained from 426 US and 93 MRI scans from 118 patients. We found good intra- and interobserver agreement for all the measurements. US measurements were reliable when compared to MRI, including TBV which achieved excellent agreement with that of MRI [ICC of 0.98 (95% CI 0.96–0.99)]. TBV estimated through 2D measurements of biparietal diameter, anteroposterior axis, and vertical axis was comparable among both techniques. We estimated the population 95% confidence interval for the mean values of biparietal diameter, anteroposterior axis, vertical axis, and total brain volume by post-menstrual age. A TBV prediction table based on the three axes is proposed to enable easy implementation of TBV estimation in routine 2D US during admission in the NICU.Conclusions: US measurements of biparietal diameter, vertical axis, and anteroposterior axis are reliable. TBV segmented through 3D US is comparable to MRI estimated TBV. 2D US accurate estimation of TBV is possible through biparietal diameter, vertical, and anteroposterior axes.

Hepatic Artery Delineation on Ultrasound Volumes Comparing B-Flow and Color Doppler for Postoperative Monitoring of Pediatric Liver Transplants

“…This can especially be useful for critical ill patients and young children requiring minimal handling. Examples of clinical routines with incorporation of US volumes are volumetric neonatal brain evaluation, neonatal basal artery evaluation, femoral artery evaluation in infants, growth plate assessment in adolescence, as well as general abdominal US in adults [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 26 , 27 , 28 ]. For these diagnostic protocols, technical settings including probe orientation, starting and ending position in case of free-hand translational probe movement, as well as rules for later offline read-out have been defined.…”

Gaussian Processes for Missing Value Imputation

“…Four datasets are publicly available from the UCI repository [16]. The last dataset, called TotalBrainVolume (TBV), is a private dataset obtained from ''Perinatal brain damage'' group at Biomedical Research and Innovation Institute of Cádiz (INiBICA) Research Unit, Puerta del Mar University Hospital University of Cádiz, Spain [34]. It is related to preterm infants and it contains different categorical and continuous attributes corresponding to the clinical information associated to those infants.…”