Possible applications of digital analysis of ultrasonic images of the placenta

Analysis of the digitised ultrasonic images of in vivo placentae at 15-18 weeks gestation has revealed various textural differences. These have been correlated with smoking, visual appearance and the subsequent development of hypertension. The total number of patients included in this study was 98, of which 70 had images suitable for analysis. There were no significant textural differences between the images of the placentae of smokers and non-smokers nor did the spatially dependent co-occurrence matrices correlate with visual appearance. Textural differences were however detected when the placentae of the normotensive group were compared to those of patients who subsequently developed hypertension (latent hypertension) in the third trimester of pregnancy (p less than 0.05 Mann Whitney 'U' test).