Text/Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter Chen Huitu/Interviewee provided Every family hopes to give birth to a healthy baby, and ultrasound examination is the most important link in the prenatal check-up of pregnant women. It can avoid misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis of m

Text/Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter Chen Huitu/Respondent Provided

Every family hopes to give birth to a healthy baby, and ultrasound examination is the most important part of pregnant women’s prenatal checkup to avoid misdiagnosis and misdiagnosis of major birth defects of the fetus to the greatest extent. Missed diagnosis is what ultrasound professionals have been working towards.

Recently, Guangdong Medical Association The sixth academic conference on prenatal diagnosis was held in Guangzhou. Experts attending the meeting conducted in-depth discussions on fetal central nervous system abnormalities. The reporter learned from the meeting that ultrasound during pregnancy, with the help of artificial intelligence , is expected to improve the overall detection level of fetal birth defects.

The total incidence of birth defects in my country is about 5.6%

Birth defects, commonly known as "congenital malformations", refer to abnormalities in body structure, function or metabolism that occur before a baby is born.

Common birth defects include congenital heart disease , limb malformations, hydrocephalus , cleft lip , polydactyly, neural tube malformations , etc. The "China Birth Defects Prevention and Control Report" released in 2012 shows that the total incidence of birth defects in my country is about 5.6%.

In order to deal with birth defects, the country has established a three-level prevention system, of which secondary prevention is currently the most important, that is, pregnancy screening and prenatal diagnosis.

Ultrasound examination is the most important part of prenatal check-up for pregnant women. During the entire growth and development monitoring process of the fetus, prenatal ultrasound is an irreplaceable examination, and it is almost the only non-invasive and repeatable prenatal imaging examination. It is an examination method that can directly observe whether the fetus has birth defects. After abnormalities are found during ultrasound examination, pregnant women can be clearly instructed to do amniotic fluid chromosome and gene testing .

Every time B ultrasound shows no missing , why are babies with defects still born?

Xie Hongning, chief physician, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, said that ultrasonic examination has unique advantages in screening structural malformations, but for other malformations, such as functional malformations, or various causes Brain developmental abnormalities that result in no structural malformations are difficult to detect, and other examination methods are needed.

In addition, the causes of missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis in ultrasonic examination are also the intrauterine conditions of the fetus, as well as the doctor's ultrasonic examination skill level, and errors in reading and judgment of ultrasonic images may lead to misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis.

Professor Xie Hongning said that in order to minimize the impact of intrauterine conditions on the fetus, the time for prenatal malformation examination is set at 20-24 weeks of pregnancy, when the amniotic fluid in the uterus is the most, and the fetus can move freely in the uterus. This makes it easier for the sonographer to observe the fetus from all angles. The prenatal ultrasound industry has been improving the technical level of ultrasound doctors through standardized training and prenatal ultrasound quality control to avoid missed diagnosis of birth defects.

AI "navigation", ultrasound doctors have professional assistants

Reporters learned from this meeting that in order to improve the standard of ultrasound examination during pregnancy as unified, objective and accurate as possible, the executive director of the Guangdong Ultrasound Medical Engineering Association, Love Pregnancy Ultrasound Medicine Dr. Wang Nan, based on his clinical experience, teamed up with many top-level medical institutions across the country, including the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, and the School of Computer Science at South China University of Technology to jointly develop an AI intelligent system for obstetric ultrasound.

puts this system at the hands of ultrasound doctors, and can provide ultrasound doctors with real-time and synchronized analysis results, which to a large extent solves the problem of differences in doctor levels and achieves the goals of preventing missed tests, controlling quality, and improving efficiency.

"Septum pellucidum hypoplasia, ventricular dilation", when the doctor is doing an ultrasound examination, the AI ​​system will issue a warning in red fonts on the left side of the screen, and will also use a strobe in the corresponding area of ​​the image to remind the doctor to pay attention. .

Dr. Wang Nan explained that the ultrasound AI intelligent system is like a driver with navigation assistance for ultrasound doctors. Even if he first arrives in an unfamiliar environment, he can understand the surrounding situation in time, which will help him make correct decisions. judge."For young doctors, this is like having a teacher teaching with them all the time, which can greatly shorten the growth cycle of young doctors." Wang Nan said.

Professor Xie Hongning added that prenatal ultrasound doctors have to face a large number of subjects every day. Abnormality examination involves many details of the fetal body structure. The AI ​​system can promptly remind the doctor which parts have not been examined to avoid "Drowsy driving" leads to missed diagnoses (accidents). Xie Hongning said: "Even an 'old driver' like me feels that work efficiency can be greatly improved after using it."

Current research shows that taking craniocerebral malformations as an example, with the help of the ultrasound AI intelligent system, the missed diagnosis rate can be reduced by 6 %—10%.

It is understood that the ultrasound AI intelligent system has been used in more than 100 hospitals in more than 20 provinces and cities, including the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Maternal and Child Health Hospital, and Chongqing Maternal and Child Health Hospital. (For more news and information, please follow Yangcheng Pai pai.ycwb.com)

Source | Yangcheng Evening News·Yangcheng Pai

Editor | Liu Xinyu

Proofreading | Li Hongyu