Method and Apparatus For Monitoring Labor Parameter

• US 20080167553A1
• Filed: 08/06/2004
• Published: 07/10/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/06/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Trig Medical Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Trig Medical Ltd.
• Inventors: Bar-Sella, Ran, Paltieli, Yoav, Ben-David, Gal, Soldea, Octavian
• Granted Patent: US 7,850,625 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 600/437
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/061 Determining position of a probe within the body employing means separate from the probe, e.g. sensing internal probe position employing impedance electrodes on the surface of the body A61B1/00158 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1076 for measuring dimensions inside body cavities, e.g. using catheters A61B3/1005 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4362 Assessing foetal parameters
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6826 Finger
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6838 Clamps or clips
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/0833 involving detecting or locating foreign bodies or organic structures
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 8/0866 involving foetal diagnosis; pre-natal or peri-natal diagnosis of the baby
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10132 Ultrasound image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20116 Active contour; Active surface; Snakes
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30044 Fetus; Embryo
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/12 Edge-based segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/149 involving deformable models, e.g. active contour models
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 128/916 Ultrasound 3-D imaging

Abstract

A method for early detection of a pregnancy complication, including touching a position sensor to a point on a fetal presenting part of a fetus in a mother, and capturing a position of the position sensor, touching the position sensor to a set of points on the mother and capturing the position of the position sensor at each point, and detecting a pregnancy complication sign based upon a predefined criterion for said pregnancy complication. Methods and apparatus are provided for identifying the BPD pattern in an ultrasound image, for determining characteristics of body parts outside of a pelvic region, for BPD reconstruction and for an adapter for a position sensor are also described among other embodiments.

Claims

1. A method for early detection of a pregnancy complication, the method comprising:

touching a position sensor to a point on a fetal presenting part of a fetus in a mother, and capturing a position of the position sensor;

touching the position sensor to a set of points on the mother and capturing the position of the position sensor at each point; and

detecting a pregnancy complication sign based upon a predefined criterion for said pregnancy complication.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said predefined criterion comprises at least one of contractions with a predetermined frequency, cramping, pelvic pressure, excessive vaginal discharge, back pain, premature rupture of membrane (PROM), cervical dilation greater than a predefined amount, and effacement greater than a predefined amount.

3-8. -8. (canceled)

9. A method for identifying a relevant head plane to pass through a pelvic inlet, the method comprising:

constructing a three-dimensional model of a fetal head and a pelvic inlet;

checking dimensions of a set of fetal head planes and their spatial orientations relative to the pelvic inlet; and

selecting a plane from the fetal head planes with the best spatial orientation relative to the pelvic inlet.

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein said pelvic inlet is modeled by an ellipse.

11. (canceled)

12. A method for BPD reconstruction, the method comprising:

collecting ultrasonic images of a volume containing a fetus along with 3D positional data;

using known calibration information to translate pixels of the ultrasonic images to the true 3D position of those pixels;

selecting an image and marking a fetal skull in the image; and

projecting the marked fetal skull image onto another ultrasound image, which represents a different plane in the 3D space.

13. The method according to claim 12, wherein marking the fetal skull in the image comprises manually selecting one of the collected images and marking the contour of fetal skull in the image.

14. The method according to claim 12, wherein marking the fetal skull in the image comprises automatically selecting an image with a high signal-to-noise ratio and with clear marks of a fetal skull contour.

15-27. -27. (canceled)