Cleft lip pathology diagnosis and foetal landmark extraction via 3D geometrical analysis.

This work proposes a methodology to automatically diagnose and formalize prenatal cleft lip with representative key points and identify the type of defect (unilateral, bilateral, right, or left) in three-dimensional ultrasonography (3D US). Differential Geometry has been used as a framework for describing facial shapes and curvatures. Then, descriptors coming from this field are employed for identifying the typical key points of the defect and its dimensions. The descriptive accurateness of these descriptors has allowed us to automatically extract reference points, quantitative distances, labial profiles, and to provide information about facial asymmetry. Seventeen foetal faces, nine of healthy foetuses and eight with different types of cleft lips, have been obtained through a Voluson system and used for testing the algorithm. In case no defect is present, the algorithm detects thirteen standard facial soft-tissue landmarks. This would help ultrasonographists and future mothers in identifying the most salient points of the forthcoming baby. This algorithm has been designed to support practitioners in identifying and classifying cleft lips. The gained results have shown that Differential Geometry may be a valuable tool for describing faces and for diagnosis.