Automated Measurement of Ultrasound Markers of Congenital Fetal Abnormalities

This work deals with displaying and measuring ultrasonic markers of congenital defects of the fetus in first trimester of pregnancy. Background research of ultrasonic markers was based on the studies of prof. Kypros Nicolaides (Great Britain), the president of the Fetal Medicine Foundation. This work contains a brief description of diagnosing of congenital defects during all three trimesters, and lists in detail defects that can be diagnosed properly during first trimester, as well as methods of calculating the risk of chromosomal abnormalities. In the next parts of this work, there are descriptions of methods used to improve results while measuring nuchal translucence (NT) strongest marker of Down syndrome in first trimester. The imaging capabilities of ultrasound devices were tested. Using scanned images, the influence of different display parameters on the resolution could be determined. Furthermore, using recommendations of the FMF, algorithms for adjusting correct slice of fetus and automatic measurement NT were designed and tested. A program application was designed that enabled testing of those algorithms on real images and calculating risks of chromosomal abnormalities from CRL and NT value. Designed algorithms were tested on real images. The program application, in witch the algorithms for measuring NT (NT detection algorithms) are included, was created