Automated fetal head detection and measurement in ultrasound images by iterative randomized Hough transform

An image-processing and object-detection method was developed to automate the measurements of biparietal diameter (BPD) and head circumference (HC) in ultrasound fetal images. The heads in 214 of 217 images were detected by an iterative randomized Hough transform. A head was assumed to have an elliptical shape with parameters progressively estimated by the iterative randomized Hough transform. No user input or size range of the head was required. The detection and measurement took 1.6 s on a personal computer. The interrun variations of the algorithm were small at 0.84% for BPD and 2.08% for HC. The differences between the automatic measurements and sonographers' manual measurements were 0.12% for BPD and -0.52% for HC. The 95% limits of agreement were -3.34%, 3.58% for BPD and -5.50%, 4.45% for HC. The results demonstrated that the automatic measurements were consistent and accurate. This method provides a valuable tool for fetal examinations.