Automated detection and measurement of uterine peristalsis in cine MR images.

Purpose: To evaluate the ability of automated software to quantify uterine peristalsis on cine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Materials And Methods: At 1.5T, half-Fourier acquisition single-shot turbo spin echo (HASTE) techniques were used to obtain 60 serial images over 3 minutes (TR/TE 3000/80 msec) in a midsagittal plane of the uterus. Thirty-two cine MR datasets, obtained from 16 healthy females, were analyzed. Uterine peristalsis was defined as the traveling waves of decreasing signal intensity on the endometrium-junctional zone border. The software detected traveling waves by identifying the neighboring areas showing similar patterns of signal intensity decrease in a different timing. Quantification of uterine peristaltic wave using the fully automated software was compared to qualitative visual evaluation by two readers.

Results: The mean number (and standard deviation) of peristaltic waves detected by the fully automated software and visual evaluations (readers 1 and 2) were 5.4 (3.0), 4.7 (3.1), and 4.5 (3.1) per 3 minutes, respectively. Quantification by fully automated software demonstrated excellent agreement with repeated measurement (weighted kappa 0.99) and with qualitative visual evaluations (range 0.89-0.95), comparable to interreader agreement by visual evaluations (range 0.89-0.93).

Conclusion: The fully automated software can be used to quantify uterine peristalsis comparable to visual evaluation.