A Quantification Approach of Uterine Peristalsis Propagated From the Cervix and the Fundus

Abstract

Uterine peristalsis, which occurs in waves in the uterine region, is one of the fundamental behaviours of uterus in a non-pregnant woman. There are two types of waves in uterine peristalsis; one propagates from the cervix, and the other one does from the fundus. Cine MR images can investigate the wave like uterine peristalsis. Hence, the goal of this study is to quantify the number of peristalsis propagated from the cervix or the fundus using the cine MR images. The proposed method is based on image registration and frequency analysis. The method quantifies the uterine peristalsis by analyzing the frequency spectrum of waves at the cervix and at the fundus individually. The correlation coefficient of the number of peristalsis between visual inspection and the proposed method was 0.9799 at the cervix, and was 0.9999 at the fundus. Thus, this study accurately estimated the number of peristalsis in order to support the diagnosis of the female infertility.