Automatic Measurement of Fetal Brain Development from Magnetic Resonance Imaging: New Reference Data.

Background: Accurate fetal brain volume estimation is of paramount importance in evaluating fetal development. The aim of this study was to develop an automatic method for fetal brain segmentation from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, and to create for the first time a normal volumetric growth chart based on a large cohort.

Subjects And Methods: A semi-automatic segmentation method based on Seeded Region Growing algorithm was developed and applied to MRI data of 199 typically developed fetuses between 18 and 37 weeks' gestation.