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Main Authors: Dimnaku, Andy, Yurk, Dominic, Gao, Zhiyuan, Padmanabhan, Arun, Aras, Mandar, Abu-Mostafa, Yaser
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12535
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author Dimnaku, Andy
Yurk, Dominic
Gao, Zhiyuan
Padmanabhan, Arun
Aras, Mandar
Abu-Mostafa, Yaser
author_facet Dimnaku, Andy
Yurk, Dominic
Gao, Zhiyuan
Padmanabhan, Arun
Aras, Mandar
Abu-Mostafa, Yaser
contents Ultrasound imaging of the heart (echocardiography) is widely used to diagnose cardiac diseases. However, obtaining an echocardiogram requires an expert sonographer and a high-quality ultrasound imaging device, which are generally only available in hospitals. Recently, AI-based navigation models and algorithms have been used to aid novice sonographers in acquiring the standardized cardiac views necessary to visualize potential disease pathologies. These navigation systems typically rely on directional guidance to predict the necessary rotation of the ultrasound probe. This paper demonstrates a novel AI navigation system that builds on a decision model for identifying the inferior vena cava (IVC) of the heart. The decision model is trained offline using cardiac ultrasound videos and employs binary classification to determine whether the IVC is present in a given ultrasound video. The underlying model integrates a novel localization algorithm that leverages the learned feature representations to annotate the spatial location of the IVC in real-time. Our model demonstrates strong localization performance on traditional high-quality hospital ultrasound videos, as well as impressive zero-shot performance on lower-quality ultrasound videos from a more affordable Butterfly iQ handheld ultrasound machine. This capability facilitates the expansion of ultrasound diagnostics beyond hospital settings. Currently, the guidance system is undergoing clinical trials and is available on the Butterfly iQ app.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_12535
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Decision-based AI Visual Navigation for Cardiac Ultrasounds
Dimnaku, Andy
Yurk, Dominic
Gao, Zhiyuan
Padmanabhan, Arun
Aras, Mandar
Abu-Mostafa, Yaser
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Ultrasound imaging of the heart (echocardiography) is widely used to diagnose cardiac diseases. However, obtaining an echocardiogram requires an expert sonographer and a high-quality ultrasound imaging device, which are generally only available in hospitals. Recently, AI-based navigation models and algorithms have been used to aid novice sonographers in acquiring the standardized cardiac views necessary to visualize potential disease pathologies. These navigation systems typically rely on directional guidance to predict the necessary rotation of the ultrasound probe. This paper demonstrates a novel AI navigation system that builds on a decision model for identifying the inferior vena cava (IVC) of the heart. The decision model is trained offline using cardiac ultrasound videos and employs binary classification to determine whether the IVC is present in a given ultrasound video. The underlying model integrates a novel localization algorithm that leverages the learned feature representations to annotate the spatial location of the IVC in real-time. Our model demonstrates strong localization performance on traditional high-quality hospital ultrasound videos, as well as impressive zero-shot performance on lower-quality ultrasound videos from a more affordable Butterfly iQ handheld ultrasound machine. This capability facilitates the expansion of ultrasound diagnostics beyond hospital settings. Currently, the guidance system is undergoing clinical trials and is available on the Butterfly iQ app.
title Decision-based AI Visual Navigation for Cardiac Ultrasounds
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12535