A feasibility study of the automatic cystocele severity grading software for quantitative evaluation of prolapse of bladder posterior wall by transperineal ultrasound / 中华超声影像学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the feasibility of the automatic cystocele severity grading software for quantitative evaluation of prolapse of bladder posterior wall by transperineal ultrasound . Methods One hundred and seventy transperineal ultrasound video clips were recorded when the female patients performing the Valsalva maneuver and those clips were divided into training group ( 85 cases) and test group ( 85 cases) randomly ,then the ralated structures of the images from the training group offline were marked . Through machine learning algorithm ,the computer had learned and was able to analyzed the marking information ,then the automatic cystocele severity grading software was obtained . And later the software was ran to mark the structures and get the cystocele severity grading in the images from the test group . Meanwhile , the same structures of the same images manually were marked and after an interval of more than two weeks the process were repeated by 3 doctors . Finally the grading results obtained from the software and the measurers of the 3 doctors were compared . Results The intelligent identification and automatic measurement software obtained from the machine learning algorithm was able to identify the related structures . The grading results of each measurer were of good consistency ( κ0 .72 －0 .78 ;ICC0 .980－0 .990) . The grading results between different measurers were of good consistency ( κ0 .65－0 .75 ;ICC0 .985－0 .992) . The grading results between automatic software and three different measurers were of good consistency ( κ0 .63－0 .67 ;ICC0 .967－0 .969 ; r ＝0 .936 ,0 .943 ,0 .936 ,all P ＜0 .01) . Conclusions The automatic cystocele severity grading software is able to identify the related structures in the images and reliable to apply the software in pelvic floor ultrasound .