Aw. Welsh et al., Development of three-dimensional power Doppler ultrasound imaging of fetoplacental vasculature, ULTRASOUN M, 27(9), 2001, pp. 1161-1170
To develop an off-line system for three-dimensional (3-D) ultrasound (US) r
econstruction of fetoplacental vasculature using colour segmentation and re
construction software and to determine sources of error in fully freehand u
ltrasound image acquisition. US images were acquired freehand with the Acus
on Sequoia(TM) (5C 2-MHz transducer) using power Doppler. After digital tra
nsfer to a personal computer, CQ Analysis software (Kinetic Imaging Ltd, Li
verpool, UK) was used to segment the colour information from these images,
and the resulting 8-bit grey-scale images were used for 3-D rendering using
commercial software (VoxBlast(TM), Vaytek Inc., Fairfield, IA, USA). 2-D s
canning, software and freehand acquisition accuracy were assessed using a l
inear test rig and distance and volume phantoms (Dansk Phantom Service Ltd)
; 2-D scanning accuracy was within 1.3%, and software reconstruction accura
cy within 1% for x and y planes and up to 3% for the z plane. Fully freehan
d acquisition was associated with a 12% to 18% mean percentage error in dis
tance measurement in the plane of acquisition. Volumetric reconstruction in
accuracy was between 1.5% and 19.7% for precisely separated images and betw
een 16.2% and 39.2% for fully freehand image acquisition. Rendered 3-D US v
ascular images clearly delineated vascular anatomy within the placenta and
cord. Fully freehand 3-D US does have a role in off-line reconstruction of
vascular anatomy, although variability in the z plane precludes its use for
volumetric measurement.