Automatic Fetal Orientation Detection Algorithm in Fetal MRI

Fetal orientation determines the mode of delivery. It is also important for sequence planning in fetal MRI. This abstract proposes Fet-Net, a deep-learning algorithm, which uses a novel convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture, to automatically detect fetal orientation from a 2-dimensional (2D) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) slice. 6,120 2D MRI slices displaying vertex, breech, oblique and transverse fetal orientations were used for training, validation and testing. Fet-Net achieved an average accuracy and F1 score of 97.68%, and a loss of 0.06828. Fet-Net was able to detect and classify fetal orientation, which may serve to accelerate fetal MRI acquisition.