SEG-FAUSP: Anatomical Structure Segmentation of the Standard Sections of Fetal Abdominal Ultrasounds

This study addresses the challenge of the difficult identification of organ structures in the standard sections of fetal abdominal ultrasounds. A deep learning-based multi-task model named SEG-FAUSP was developed to segment the core anatomical structures of seven key fetal abdominal ultrasound sections. We collected fetal abdominal ultrasound images from pregnant women in the mid-pregnancy period (18–24 weeks) using various mainstream ultrasound devices, and professional physicians annotated key anatomical structures (e.g., umbilical veins, gastric bubbles, spine) in the images. Based on an improved deep learning framework, the model accurately segments and locates the target organ structures through a parallel dual-branch semantic segmentation network, which avoids the over-reliance on large-scale pre-trained data in traditional methods. Experimental results show that the model achieves excellent performance in anatomical structure segmentation, with the intersection over union of the bladder and gastric bubble both reaching above 0.84; its segmentation accuracy for complex structures such as the inferior vena cava is also significantly superior to the baseline model. As an end-to-end model, it simplifies the clinical interpretation process of fetal abdominal ultrasound, reduces the risk of missed diagnoses caused by unclear organ identification, provides an efficient auxiliary tool for prenatal screening in grassroots medical institutions, and is of great significance for improving the quality of newborns.