Intelligent Ultrasound provides quality control of fetal ultrasound images for the hapin trial

Intelligent Ultrasound announces it is working with the Household Air Pollution Intervention Network (HAPIN) trial to provide quality control of fetal ultrasound images. The work is led by principal investigators at Johns Hopkins, Emory and Colorado State Universities and is funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Institutes for Health (NIH).

The HAPIN study, currently taking place in Guatemala, India, Peru and Rwanda, is a randomised controlled trial to assess the effect of using of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stoves instead of customary cooking practices on air pollution, child health and adult chronic disease. The data is urgently needed to inform policies on the health gains that can be obtained by scaling up LPG stoves or other interventions to reduce household air pollution among vulnerable populations around the world.

As part of the trial, 3,200 pregnant women are being monitored using ultrasound to assess gestational age and fetal development. The HAPIN team is keen to ensure that the ultrasound images collected are of the highest quality, so has asked Intelligent Ultrasound to use its AI-based ScanNav image inspection algorithms and its panel of expert sonographers to do this.

Co-Principal Investigator Dr. William Checkley said: “We are delighted to have Intelligent Ultrasound as part of our research team assisting us in obtaining the highest quality of fetal ultrasounds for this landmark study of household air pollution and health outcomes across the life span.”

Nicholas Sleep, CTO at MedaPhor, said: “We are pleased to be helping the HAPIN project by using ScanNav to automate the quality assurance of the ultrasound images being taken in the field. We hope that this will help the HAPIN team ensure the validity of the study results.”