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The goal of this study is to increase the measurement accuracy of the bladder volume for point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS). An algorithm that can utilize spatial information from inertial measurement units (IMUs) embedded in POCUS and ultrasound images to estimate bladder volume has been developed. So far, ultrasound scanning is a noninvasive technique for treatment and diagnosis in the hospital. Bladder volume determination in post-void residual (PVR) through ultrasound can help clinicians. However, the ultrasound machines with the ability of calculating volumes precisely in hospital are bigger and expensive than POCUS. The goal of this study is to improve the accuracy of bladder volume without expensive instruments. We use an on-the-shelf wireless hand-held convex probe (LU700C, LELTEK Inc, Taiwan) to collect bladder images. LU700C is also capable of providing real-time posture information to detect User behavior. To further enhance the accuracy, an extra IMU has been attached on scanner for collecting posture data conveniently at scanning. The original prolate ellipsoid formula-based algorithm calculates bladder volume with virtual caliper. The bladder phantoms are made by ourselves to further verify the accuracy. Each of the measurement of bladders were repeat three times to follow the accepted procedural. The results show integrate hand’s posture information with timestamp into sonogram frames during bladder scanning can improve accuracy of volume estimation effectively. The proposed algorithm implements in current devices using in bladders measurement performs significantly better than the existing ones. Our goals of this research are to improve the quality of clinical through software-update without any change of hardware and to bring sustainable healthcare for areas lacking of medical resources.
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