Linear Robot as The Approach towards Individual Abdominal Ultrasound Scanning in Developing Countries?

Christina Pahl

Abstract


In order to improve comfort in abdominal ultrasound scanning, reduce operator dependency and increase image resolution, a novel method for automatic ultrasound cervix scanning, especially for developing countries, has been developed. To determine the reference scanning point for customized diagnosis procedures, personalized scanning algorithms based on umbilicus detection are utilized. The setup consists of three linear motors controlled by an ATmega328 microcontroller and is based on real-time data of an IR sensor as feedback information. For testing purposes 10 subjects were scanned using a robotic platform. Robotically acquired data were compared with manually taken ultrasound images. Safety and image quality have been evaluated and approaches developed to counteract mentioned deficits. A correlation analysis as well as image quality classification between histograms and probe pressure image data was performed. Results show an automated method for personalized ultrasonography with a maximum accuracy of the defined scanning reference being 98.4 % for one dimension. It can be concluded that simple image processing techniques like 3D reconstruction and merging in combination with robotically guided ultrasound probe motion are highly efficient to counteract existing ultrasonography deficits. Future works consider the application of automated ultrasonography on related medical fields.


Full Text:

PDF

References


J. Ferlay, I. Soerjomataram, M. Ervik, R. Dikshit, S. Eser, C. Mathers, M. Rebelo, D. Parkin, D. Forman, F. Bray, “Cancer Incidence and Mortality Worldwide: IARC CancerBase No. 11,” GLOBOCAN 2012 v1.0, International Agency for Research on Cancer, 2013.

G. Lim, H. Yahaya, T. Lim, “The first report of the national cancer registry cancer incidence in Malaysia,” Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of Health, pp. 57-58, 2003.

D. Parkin, F. Bray, J. Ferlay, P. Pisani, “Global cancer statistics,” CA: a cancer journal for clinicians, pp.74-108, 2005.

C. Pahl, E. Supriyanto, “Personalized Cervix Ultrasound Scan Based On Robotic Arm,” PSRC-Planetary Scientific Research Center Proceedings, 2012.

C. Pahl, E. Supriyanto, N. Mahmood, J. Yunus, “Cervix Detection Using Squared Error Subtraction,” Modelling Symposium (AMS), 2012 Sixth Asia. IEEE, pp. 121-125, 2012.

A. I. B. Jeffree, C. Pahl, H. N. Abduljabbar, I. Ramli, N. I. B. Aziz, Y. M. Myint, E. Supriyanto, “Cervical Segmentation in Ultrasound Images using Level-set Algorithm,” WSEAS International Conference on Biomedicine and Health Engineering, 2013.

E. Supriyanto, J. Z. E. Soh, S. M. Nooh, “Myofascial Pain Syndrome, Trigger Point Detection based on Ultrasound Image,” Proceedings of 15th WSEAS International Conference on Computers, pp.178-183, 2011.

T. Wright Jr, M. Schiffman, D. Solomon, J. T. Cox, F. García, S. Goldie, D. Saslow, “Interim guidance for the use of human papillomavirus DNA testing as an adjunct to cervical cytology for screening,” Obstetrics & Gynecology, 2004, pp. 304-309.

G. Brix, U. Lechel, G. Glatting, S. Ziegler, W. M.nzing, S. Müller, T. Beyer, “Radiation exposure of patients undergoing whole-body dual- modality 18F-FDG PET/CT examinations,” Journal of Nuclear Medicine, pp. 608-613, 2005.

D. Frush, L. Donnelly, N. Rosen, “Computed tomography and radiation risks: what pediatric health care providers should know,” Pediatrics, pp. 951–957, 2003.

T. Slovis, “Children, computed tomography radiation dose, and the As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA) concept,” Pediatrics, pp.971-972, 2003.

C. Pahl, A. Jeffree, Y. Myint, E. Supriyanto, “Cervix Segmentation in Ultrasound Data Based on Numerical Technique,” International Journal of Biology and Biomedical Engineering, Issue 4, Volume 7, pp. 157-163, 2013.

A. Fenster, D. Downey, H. Cardinal, “Three-dimensional ultrasound imaging,” Physics in medicine and biology, 2001.

R. Prager, U. Ijaz, A. Gee, G. Treece, “Three-dimensional ultrasound imaging,” Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Journal of Engineering in Medicine, pp.193-22, 2010.

J. Szilard, “An improved three-dimensional display system,” Ultrasonics, pp. 273-276, 1974.

K. Pandey, A. Pradhan, A. Agarwal, A. Bhagoliwal, N. Agarwal, “Fluorescence Spectroscopy: A New Approach in Cervical Cancer,” The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology of India, pp. 1-5, 2012.

J. Henderson, M. Saraiya, G. Martinez, C. Harper, G. Sawaya, “Changes to cervical cancer prevention guidelines: Effects on screening among US women ages 15–29,“ Preventive Medicine, 2012.

C. Ravin, S. George, “Radiological Society of North America,” Radiology, pp. 9-10, 2012.

J. Rouyer, P. Lasaygues, S. Mensah, “Novel Ultrasound Tomograph for Anatomical Inspection,” Acoustical Imaging, pp. 3-10, 2012.

J. Charboneau, D. Levine, “Diagnostic ultrasound,” JAMA, 2012.

A. Wong, J. Scharcanski, “Monte Carlo despeckling of transrectal ultrasound images of the prostate,” Digital Signal Processing, 2012.

R. Rockland, H. Kimmel, J. Carpinelli, L. Hirsch, L. Burr-Alexander, “Medical Robotics in K-12 Education,” Robots in K-12 Education, p. 120, 2012.

P. N. Wells, “The safety of diagnostic ultrasound: report of a British Institute of Radiology Working Group,“ British Inst. of Radiology, 1987.

W. R. Hedrick, D. L. Hykes,” Biological Effects of Ultrasound I. Specification of Intensity,“ Journal of Diagnostic Medical Sonography, 7(4), pp. 188-193, 1991.

P. N. Wells, “Ultrasonic imaging of the human body,” Reports on progress in physics, 62(5), p. 671, 1999.

E. Kimmel, “Cavitation bioeffects,” Critical Reviews™ in Biomedical Engineering, 34(2), 2006.

C. A. Speed, “Therapeutic ultrasound in soft tissue lesions.” Rheumatology, 40(12), pp. 1331-1336, 2001.

C. Pahl, E. Supriyanto, “Infrared based clinical landmark determination for ultrasound image acquisition,“ In Telecommunications and Signal Processing (TSP), 2015 38th International Conference on, IEEE, pp. 236-240, 2015.

C. Pahl, E. Supriyanto, “Design of automatic transabdominal ultrasound imaging system,” In Methods and Models in Automation and Robotics (MMAR), 2015 20th International Conference on, IEEE, pp. 435-440, 2015.

C. Pahl, T.Y. Oon, E. Supriyanto, “Fuzzy system based face tracking for head movement control in progressive health care,” In Methods and Models in Automation and Robotics (MMAR), 2015 20th International Conference on, IEEE, pp. 880-885, 2015.

C. Pahl, E. Supriyanto, “Guide to fuzzy logic based transesophageal echocardiography motorized probe control,” In Methods and Models in Automation and Robotics (MMAR), 2015 20th International Conference on, IEEE, pp. 892-896, 2015.

W. E. Woodson, B. Tillman, P. Tillman, “Human factors design handbook: information and guidelines for the design of systems, facilities, equipment, and products for human use,“ 1992.

K. W. Lai, Foetal abnormalities detection based on three dimensional nuchal translucency, Doctoral dissertation, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2012.

F. De Oliveira, S. Moreau, C. Gehin, A. Dittmar, “Infrared imaging analysis for thermal comfort assessment,” Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE, pp. 3373-3376, 2007.

M. A. Janvier, L. G. Durand, M. H. R. Cardinal, I. Renaud, B. Chayer, P. Bigras, ... & G. Cloutier, “Performance evaluation of a medical robotic 3D-ultrasound imaging system,” Medical image analysis, 12(3), pp. 275-290, 2008.

W. H. Zhu, S. E. Salcudean, S. Bachmann, P. Abolmaesumi, „Motion/force/image control of a diagnostic ultrasound robot,” In Robotics and Automation, 2000. Proceedings. ICRA'00. IEEE International Conference on, Vol. 2, pp. 1580-1585, 2000.

C. Pahl, “Novel Method for Autonomous Ultrasound Cervix Scanning,” Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 2012.

F. W. Lewis, S. Jagannathan, A. Yesildirak, “Neural network control of robot manipulators and non-linear systems,” CRC Press, 1998.

C. Pahl, M. Zare, L. Bordey, M. H. Satria, E. Supriyanto, Y. W. Hau, “Smartphone Applications in the Support of Weight Reduction and Goal Maintenance,” Journal of Soft Computing and Decision Support Systems, 1(1), pp. 12-16, 2014.

M. Zare, C. Pahl, M. Nilashi, N. Salim, O. Ibrahim, “A Review of Semantic Similarity Measures in Biomedical Domain Using SNOMED-CT,” Journal of Soft Computing and Decision Support Systems, 2(6), pp. 1-13, 2015.

C. Pahl, E. Supriyanto, V. Detschew, “Evaluation of UML modeling tools for clinical pathways used in health information systems.” In Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 2015 10th Iberian Conference on, IEEE, pp. 1-6, 2015.

C. Pahl, N. B. Mohammad, E. Supriyanto, “Analysis on the electroretinography response for flickering and current stimulations.” In Telecommunications and Signal Processing (TSP), 2015 38th International Conference on, IEEE, pp. 482-485, 2015.

J. Alcázar, M. Aubá, B. Olartecoechea, “Three-dimensional ultrasound in gynecological clinical practice,” Reports in Medical Imaging, pp.1-13, 2012.

C. Pahl, J. Lam, H. N. Abduljabbar, E. Supriyanto, Y. M. Myint, “Performance Observation of Gabor Filter for Wall Thickness Measurement of Human Colon Based on Ultrasound Image,” International Journal of Information and Electronics Engineering, 4(2), p. 171, 2014.

K. Baker, V. Robertson, F. Duck, “A review of therapeutic ultrasound: biophysical effects,” Physical Therapy, pp.1351-1358, 2001.

C. Pahl, H.A.B Mazle, E. Supriyanto, ”Design of virtual instrument for automatic temperature visualization in magnetic fields using LabVIEW in combination with fiber-optical temperature measurement,” In Automation, Robotics and Applications, pp. 393-399, 2015.

C. Pahl, M. Zare, M. Nilashi, M.A. de Faria Borges, D. Weingaertner, V. Detschew, O. Ibrahim, E. Supriyanto, "Role of OpenEHR as an open source solution for the regional modelling of patient data in obstetrics." Journal of biomedical informatics, 55, pp. 174-187, 2015.

C. Pahl, et al., "Identification of Quality Parameters for an E-Health Platform in the Federal State of Thuringia in Germany." Journal of Soft Computing and Decision Support Systems 1.1, pp. 17-23, 2014.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11601/ijates.v4i3.133

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.