A Quantitative Ultrasound Approach for Detecting Placenta-Mediated Diseases

In this work, we apply a quantitative ultrasound approach to detect placenta-mediated diseases. We measure the quantitative ultrasound parameters: attenuation coefficient estimate, integrated backscatter coefficient and effective scatterer diameter from 46 ex vivo placentas collected from normal pregnancies and pregnancies affected by intra-uterine growth restriction and preeclampsia. Preliminary results show the potential of quantitative ultrasound to distinguish between health and diseased placentas.