Development of a screening tool for staging of diabetic retinopathy in fundus images

Diabetic retinopathy is a condition of the eye of diabetic patients where the retina is damaged because of long-term diabetes. The condition deteriorates towards irreversible blindness in extreme cases of diabetic retinopathy. Hence, early detection of diabetic retinopathy is important to prevent blindness. Regular screening of fundus images of diabetic patients could be helpful in preventing blindness caused by diabetic retinopathy. In this paper, we propose techniques for staging of diabetic retinopathy in fundus images using several shape and texture features computed from detected microaneurysms, exudates, and hemorrhages. The classification accuracy is reported in terms of the area (Az) under the receiver operating characteristic curve using 200 fundus images from the MESSIDOR database. The value of Az for classifying normal images versus mild, moderate, and severe nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) is 0:9106. The value of Az for classification of mild NPDR versus moderate and severe NPDR is 0:8372. The Az value for classification of moderate NPDR and severe NPDR is 0:9750.