Rapid head‐pose detection for automated slice prescription of fetal‐brain MRI

In fetal‐brain MRI, head‐pose changes between prescription and acquisition present a challenge to obtaining the standard sagittal, coronal and axial views essential to clinical assessment. As motion limits acquisitions to thick slices that preclude retrospective resampling, technologists repeat ~55‐second stack‐of‐slices scans (HASTE) with incrementally reoriented field of view numerous times, deducing the head pose from previous stacks. To address this inefficient workflow, we propose a robust head‐pose detection algorithm using full‐uterus scout scans (EPI) which take ~5 seconds to acquire. Our ~2‐second procedure automatically locates the fetal brain and eyes, which we derive from maximally stable extremal regions (MSERs). The success rate of the method exceeds 94% in the third trimester, outperforming a trained technologist by up to 20%. The pipeline may be used to automatically orient the anatomical sequence, removing the need to estimate the head pose from 2D views and reducing delays during which motion can occur.