Study on the practicality of the semi-automatic measurement for the urogenital hiatus

Abstract

Objective To determine the consistency of urogenital hiatus (UH) data between the semi-automatic measurement and manual measurement using transperineal pelvic floor ultrasonography. Methods Total of 286 three-dimensional images of minimal UH dimension were obtained. And they were divided into study group (100 images) and test group (186 images) randomly. Three experts traced and created the whole profile of the UH of those images in the study group by MATLAB. Then the semi-automatic software was obtained through machine learning algorithms. In the test group, 6 parameters of UH (including anterioposterior diameter, transverse diameter, circumference, area, left and right levator urethral gap distance) were measured by two experts (D1 and D2) both manually and semi-automatically. The time experts spent on measuring was also recorded and compared. Results The time used for semi-automatic measurement was significantly shorter than that for manual measurement[ (7.49±1.51)s vs (42.42±11.08)s, (7.52±1.37)s vs (43.45±9.09)s for D1 and D2, t=-12.09, -13.64, all P=0.00]. The Pearson correlation coefficients between semi-automatic and manual measurements of 6 parameters were 0.857-0.985 (P<0.01), 0.853-0.979 (P<0.01) in D1 and D2, respectively. The interclass correlation coefficients (ICC) of six parameters were ranged from 0.846-0.985 for D1 and 0.843~0.979 for D2(all P<0.01). The Bland Altman plot also showed good agreement between two methods. Conclusions Intellectual recognition and semi-automatic measurement has simplified the process for UH measurement, and it is proved to be a reliable and timesaving method that is practical for clinical use. Key words: Ultrasonography, transperineal; Urogenital hiatus; Intelligent identification; Semi-automatic measurement; artificial intelligence