CAD scheme to detect hemorrhages and exudates in ocular fundus images

This paper describes a method for detecting hemorrhages and exudates in ocular fundus images. The detection of hemorrhages and exudates is important in order to diagnose diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy is one of the most significant factors contributing to blindness, and early detection and treatment are important. In this study, hemorrhages and exudates were automatically detected in fundus images without using fluorescein angiograms. Subsequently, the blood vessel regions incorrectly detected as hemorrhages were eliminated by first examining the structure of the blood vessels and then evaluating the length-to-width ratio. Finally, the false positives were eliminated by checking the following features extracted from candidate images: the number of pixels, contrast, 13 features calculated from the co-occurrence matrix, two features based on gray-level difference statistics, and two features calculated from the extrema method. The sensitivity of detecting hemorrhages in the fundus images was 85% and that of detecting exudates was 77%. Our fully automated scheme could accurately detect hemorrhages and exudates.