Quantitative analysis of the neonatal brain by ultrasound

Clinical research has shown a clear correlation between white matter disord ers of the neonatal brain and neuromotoric handicap at a later age. Ultraso und imaging is a proven method to detect the white matter damage at an earl y stage. However, since subjective visual examination of the images by neon atologists not always leads to an unambiguous diagnosis, a need for quantit ative characterization is felt. Reproducibility is the first requirement in order to be able to perform objective quantitative analysis. This paper pr oposes a software-based method to compensate for variable acquisition facto rs that negatively affect the reproducibility of the measurements. The resu lts of some basic experiments will illustrate the usefulness of the develop ed compensation algorithm. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.