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Main Authors: Xiao, Zhennan, Brudkiewicz, Katharine, Yuan, Zhen, Aughwane, Rosalind, Sokolska, Magdalena, Chappell, Joanna, Gaunt, Trevor, David, Anna L., King, Andrew P., Melbourne, Andrew
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.13106
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author Xiao, Zhennan
Brudkiewicz, Katharine
Yuan, Zhen
Aughwane, Rosalind
Sokolska, Magdalena
Chappell, Joanna
Gaunt, Trevor
David, Anna L.
King, Andrew P.
Melbourne, Andrew
author_facet Xiao, Zhennan
Brudkiewicz, Katharine
Yuan, Zhen
Aughwane, Rosalind
Sokolska, Magdalena
Chappell, Joanna
Gaunt, Trevor
David, Anna L.
King, Andrew P.
Melbourne, Andrew
contents Fetal lung maturity is a critical indicator for predicting neonatal outcomes and the need for post-natal intervention, especially for pregnancies affected by fetal growth restriction. Intra-voxel incoherent motion analysis has shown promising results for non-invasive assessment of fetal lung development, but its reliance on manual segmentation is time-consuming, thus limiting its clinical applicability. In this work, we present an automated lung maturity evaluation pipeline for diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance images that consists of a deep learning-based fetal lung segmentation model and a model-fitting lung maturity assessment. A 3D nnU-Net model was trained on manually segmented images selected from the baseline frames of 4D diffusion-weighted MRI scans. The segmentation model demonstrated robust performance, yielding a mean Dice coefficient of 82.14%. Next, voxel-wise model fitting was performed based on both the nnU-Net-predicted and manual lung segmentations to quantify IVIM parameters reflecting tissue microstructure and perfusion. The results suggested no differences between the two. Our work shows that a fully automated pipeline is possible for supporting fetal lung maturity assessment and clinical decision-making.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_13106
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Deep Learning-Based Fetal Lung Segmentation from Diffusion-weighted MRI Images and Lung Maturity Evaluation for Fetal Growth Restriction
Xiao, Zhennan
Brudkiewicz, Katharine
Yuan, Zhen
Aughwane, Rosalind
Sokolska, Magdalena
Chappell, Joanna
Gaunt, Trevor
David, Anna L.
King, Andrew P.
Melbourne, Andrew
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
Fetal lung maturity is a critical indicator for predicting neonatal outcomes and the need for post-natal intervention, especially for pregnancies affected by fetal growth restriction. Intra-voxel incoherent motion analysis has shown promising results for non-invasive assessment of fetal lung development, but its reliance on manual segmentation is time-consuming, thus limiting its clinical applicability. In this work, we present an automated lung maturity evaluation pipeline for diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance images that consists of a deep learning-based fetal lung segmentation model and a model-fitting lung maturity assessment. A 3D nnU-Net model was trained on manually segmented images selected from the baseline frames of 4D diffusion-weighted MRI scans. The segmentation model demonstrated robust performance, yielding a mean Dice coefficient of 82.14%. Next, voxel-wise model fitting was performed based on both the nnU-Net-predicted and manual lung segmentations to quantify IVIM parameters reflecting tissue microstructure and perfusion. The results suggested no differences between the two. Our work shows that a fully automated pipeline is possible for supporting fetal lung maturity assessment and clinical decision-making.
title Deep Learning-Based Fetal Lung Segmentation from Diffusion-weighted MRI Images and Lung Maturity Evaluation for Fetal Growth Restriction
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.13106