Extraction of vibration of the female bladder outlet using cystourethroscopic image under intermittent irrigation

Recently, a number of methods have been developed that make it possible to estimating elasticity and flexibility of lower urinary tract. However, those methods failed to estimate elasticity of bladder outlet directly. This paper describes a novel method for female bladder neck elasticity and flexibility estimation based on cystourethroscopic image. The first step is to extract edges from the original image based on Canny detector and morphological operations. The region of interest (ROI) was defined as the lowest part of the detected edge. The results of edge detection were compared with the original image in order to check the accuracy of proposed method. The deformation was defined as the vertical movement of certain points in which correspond to bladder neck outlet. Furthermore, the elasticity estimation may be acquired by taking the Fourier transform of the deformation wave. The experimental results indicate that this method is able to detect the deformation. By extracting the deformation, it is possible to define the vibration caused by intermittent irrigation. This vibration is expected to have correspondence to its elasticity and flexibility. Finally, directions for future work are suggested.