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Urethral Stricture Induction Followed by Buccal Mucosa Graft Urethroplasty in a Rat Model
Published on: April 28, 2023
Optimizing anterior urethral stricture assessment: leveraging AI-assisted three-dimensional sonourethrography in
Chao Feng1,2, Qi-Jie Lu3, Jing-Dong Xue4
1Department of Reproductive Medicine, The International Peace Maternity and Child Health Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, 200030, China.
Purpose:
This investigation sought to validate the clinical precision and practical applicability of AI-enhanced three-dimensional sonographic imaging for the identification of anterior urethral stricture.
Methods:
The study enrolled 63 male patients with diagnosed anterior urethral strictures alongside 10 healthy volunteers to serve as controls. The imaging protocol utilized a high-frequency 3D ultrasound system combined with a linear stepper motor, which enabled precise and rapid image acquisition. For image analysis, an advanced AI-based segmentation process using a modified U-net algorithm was implemented to perform real-time, high-resolution segmentation and three-dimensional reconstruction of the urethra. A comparative analysis was performed against the surgically measured stricture lengths. Spearman's correlation analysis was executed to assess the findings.
Results:
The AI model completed the entire processing sequence, encompassing recognition, segmentation, and reconstruction, within approximately 5 min. The mean intraoperative length of urethral stricture was determined to be 14.4 ± 8.4 mm. Notably, the mean lengths of the urethral strictures reconstructed by manual and AI models were 13.1 ± 7.5 mm and 13.4 ± 7.2 mm, respectively. Interestingly, no statistically significant disparity in urethral stricture length between manually reconstructed and AI-reconstructed images was observed. Spearman's correlation analysis underscored a more robust association of AI-reconstructed images with intraoperative urethral stricture length than manually reconstructed 3D images (0.870 vs. 0.820). Furthermore, AI-reconstructed images provided detailed views of the corpus spongiosum fibrosis from multiple perspectives.
Conclusions:
The research heralds the inception of an innovative, efficient AI-driven sonographic approach for three-dimensional visualization of urethral strictures, substantiating its viability and superiority in clinical application.
