Measurements of the diameter of the inferior vena cava (IVC) and its respirophasic variations, called Caval index (CI), using ultrasound have been gaining increasing importance for handling trauma.
Currently, the diameter measurement of a vessel is mostly performed manually or by using semi-automatic segmentation based on seed points manually placed in the vessel region. However, both are user dependent and not preferred in time critical situations, such as EMTs in pre-hospital situations.
US2013/0303915 discloses an automated 3D ultrasound abdominal vessel monitor, which can be used for IVC measurement and monitoring. It claims that the walls of the IVC can be automatically detected so as to determine the size and volume of the IVC. However, the walls of the vessel are not easy to detect because other structures (tissue, bones or other vessels) may impair the detection, and so such a fully automatic approach is not robust or reliable.