Shape matching algorithm to validate the tracing protocol of placental chorionic surface vessel networks

R G Shah1, C M Salafia2, T Girardi1

  • 1Placental Analytics, LLC, Larchmont, NY, USA.

Placenta
|June 24, 2015
PubMed

Variability in placental chorionic surface vessel networks (PCSVNs) may mark developmental and functional changes in fetal health. Here we report a protocol of manually tracing PCSVNs from digital 2D images of post-delivery placentas and its validation by a shape matching method to compare the similarity between paint-injected and unmanipulated (uninjected and deflated vessels) tracings of PCSVNs. We show that tracings of unmanipulated vessels produce networks that are very comparable to the networks obtained by tracing paint-injected PCSVNs. We suggest that manual tracings of unmanipulated PCSVNs can extract features of PCSVN growth and structure that may impact fetal wellbeing.