Deep visual nerve tracking in ultrasound images.

Ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia (UGRA) becomes a standard procedure in surgical operations and pain management, offers the advantages of nerve localization, and provides region of interest anatomical structure visualization. Nerve tracking presents a crucial step for practicing UGRA and it is useful and important to develop a tool to facilitate this step. However, nerve tracking is a very challenging task that anesthetists can encounter due to the noise, artifacts, and nerve structure variability.

Adaptive median binary patterns for fully automatic nerves tracking in ultrasound images.

Background And Objective: In the last decade, Ultrasound-Guided Regional Anesthesia (UGRA) gained importance in surgical procedures and pain management, due to its ability to perform target delivery of local anesthetics under direct sonographic visualization. However, practicing UGRA can be challenging, since it requires high skilled and experienced operator. Among the difficult task that the operator can face, is the tracking of the nerve structure in ultrasound images.

Cardiac ultrasonography over 4G wireless networks using a tele-operated robot.

This Letter proposes an end-to-end mobile tele-echography platform using a portable robot for remote cardiac ultrasonography. Performance evaluation investigates the capacity of long-term evolution (LTE) wireless networks to facilitate responsive robot tele-manipulation and real-time ultrasound video streaming that qualifies for clinical practice. Within this context, a thorough video coding standards comparison for cardiac ultrasound applications is performed, using a data set of ten ultrasound videos.

Medical telerobotic systems: current status and future trends.

Teleoperated medical robotic systems allow procedures such as surgeries, treatments, and diagnoses to be conducted across short or long distances while utilizing wired and/or wireless communication networks. This study presents a systematic review of the relevant literature between the years 2004 and 2015, focusing on medical teleoperated robotic systems which have witnessed tremendous growth over the examined period. A thorough insight of telerobotics systems discussing design concepts, enabling technologies (namely robotic manipulation, telecommunications, and vision systems), and potential applications in clinical practice is provided, while existing limitations and future trends are also highlighted.

Phase-based probabilistic active contour for nerve detection in ultrasound images for regional anesthesia.

Ultrasound guided regional anesthesia (UGRA) is steadily growing in popularity, owing to advances in ultrasound imaging technology and the advantages that this technique presents for safety and efficiency. The aim of this work is to assist anaesthetists during the UGRA procedure by automatically detecting the nerve blocks in the ultrasound images. The main disadvantage of ultrasound images is the poor quality of the images, which are also affected by the speckle noise.

Abdominal and fetal echography tele-operated in several medical centres sites, from an expert center, using a robotic arm & telephone or satellite link.

Objective: to design and validate a method for tele-operating (from an expert site) an echographic examination in an isolated site where the patient stays.

Method: A dedicated robotic arm (ESTELE) holding a real ultrasound probe is remotely controlled from the expert site with a fictive probe, and reproduces on the real probe all the movements of the expert hand. The isolated places, are areas with reduced medical facilities, (secondary hospitals 20 to 100 km from the main hospital in Europ, dispensaries in Africa, Amazonia, the a rescue vehicles.

Advances in robotic tele-echography services--the OTELO system.

This paper presents some of the recent advances in mobile robotic tele-echography systems. It discussed the feasibility of a reliable remote ultrasound examination using such robotic systems in wireless environments. That is to say, to make use emerging wireless communications to provide a medical expert or consultant the ability to examine a remote patient.

Towards a new tool for the evaluation of the quality of ultrasound compressed images.

This paper presents a new tool for the evaluation of ultrasound image compression. The goal is to measure the image quality as easily as with a statistical criterion, and with the same reliability as the one provided by the medical assessment. An initial experiment is proposed to medical experts and represents our reference value for the comparison of evaluation criteria.

The robot and the satellite for tele-operating echographic examination in Earth isolated sites, or onboard ISS.

Unlabelled: The objective was to design and validate a method for tele-operating (from an expert site) an echographic examination in an isolated site.

Method: The isolated places, defined as areas with reduced medical facilities, could be secondary hospitals 20 to 50 km from the university hospital, or dispensaries in Africa or Amazonia, or a moving structure like a rescue vehicle or the International Space Station (ISS). At the expert center, the ultrasound medical expert moves a fictive probe, connected to a computer (n degrees 1) which sends, the coordinate changes of this probe via an ISDN or satellite line to a second computer (n degrees 2), located at the isolated site, which applies them to the robotic arm holding the real echographic probe.

Clinical trials and evaluation of a mobile, robotic tele-ultrasound system.

We have developed a robotic tele-ultrasound system (OTELO) that allows an expert to examine a distant patient by ultrasound. At the expert station, a sonographer controls a virtual probe. Movements are reproduced at the patient station, which may be several kilometres away, on a real probe held by a lightweight robot, which is positioned on the patient by a paramedic.

A tele-operated mobile ultrasound scanner using a light-weight robot.

This paper presents a new tele-operated robotic chain for real-time ultrasound image acquisition and medical diagnosis. This system has been developed in the frame of the Mobile Tele-Echography Using an Ultralight Robot European Project. A light-weight six degrees-of-freedom serial robot, with a remote center of motion, has been specially designed for this application.

Echographic examination in isolated sites controlled from an expert center using a 2-D echograph guided by a teleoperated robotic arm.

The objective of the present project was to design and validate a method for teleoperating (from an expert site) an echographic examination in an isolated site. A dedicated robotic arm holding a real ultrasound (US) probe is remotely controlled from the expert site with a fictive probe, and reproduces on the real probe all the movements of the expert hand. The isolated places, defined as areas with reduced medical facilities, could be secondary hospitals 20 to 50 km from the university hospital, or dispensaries in Africa or Amazonia, or a moving structure like a rescue vehicle or the International Space Station (ISS).

The TERESA project: from space research to ground tele-echography.

Ultrasound examinations represent one of the major diagnostic modalities of future healthcare. They are currently used to support medical space research but require a high skilled operator for both probe positioning on the patient's skin and image interpretation. TERESA is a tele-echography project that proposes a solution to bring astronauts and remotely located patients on ground quality ultrasound examinations despite the lack of a specialist at the location of the wanted medical act.

3D realtime echography and echography assisted by a robotic arm for investigating astronauts in the ISS from the ground.

As human will stay for long duration in isolated sites like ISS there will be a need to perform quick and reliable diagnosis to evaluate the gravity of the pathology in presence of clinical symptoms. Many pathological situations (abnormal heart rate, pericardic collection, mitral prolaps, cholecystis, renal lithiasis, normal and ectopic pregnancies, ovarian cyst, acute appendicitis, phlebitis ..

Feto-maternal circulation: mathematical model and comparison with Doppler measurements.

Objectives: Clinicians are more and more frequently studying fetal blood flow velocity curves recorded by Doppler ultrasound in vital organs such as the placenta and fetal brain to evaluate fetal well-being. We have therefore developed a mathematical model of the utero-placental and fetal circulations which could be used for teaching and for a better understanding of regulatory mechanisms.

Methods: The model is based on two basic elements-an arterial segment and a bifurcation-and we have reproduced the major arteries of the feto-maternal circulation combining these basic elements.

Fetal heart modelling based on a pressure-volume relationship.

Study of the cardiovascular system of the human fetus is based on non-invasive measurement methods such as Doppler echography systems. The circulation conditions in fetal vessels are usually evaluated by resistance indices, giving limited physiological information on distal territories such as the placenta or the brain. To enhance the understanding of human fetal haemodynamics, a numerical model of the fetal heart has been developed, using the hydraulic-electric analogy.

[In utero measurement of the umbilical cord in full term pregnancy].

Objective: The length of the umbilical cord varies widely from one pregnancy to another. Although its average length is 50 cm, this measurement could vary from as little as 20 cm to more than one metre. The purpose of our study was to evaluate, in utero, the length of the umbilical cord during the third trimester of pregnancy knowing the propagation velocity of the pressure wave along the cord.

Experimental and numerical models of acute intracranial hypertension and basilar artery blood flow velocity.

A numerical model based on Navier-Stokes equations was used in conjunction with an experimental model in rabbits to study the effects of acute intracranial hypertension on basilar artery blood flow velocity. The hypertension was induced by pressure transmission via an epidural pressure sensor inserted into a parietal intracranial opening. A critical value of half of the diastolic arterial pressure for the intracranial cerebral pressure was determined by both numerical and experimental models.

Influence of the measurement location on the resistance index in the umbilical arteries: a hemodynamic approach.

A computer model was used to study the primary factors generating the reduction in resistance index, (S-D)/S, values observed by ultrasonic Doppler measurements in the umbilical artery, from the fetal insertion to the placental insertion (S represents the amplitude of the systolic peak and D the amplitude of the diastolic peak). This hemodynamic approach shows that the placental resistance is the primary factor, the viscosity and the cord length playing secondary roles. Clinically, the position of the measurement along the cord is an important factor.