Classification of neovascularization on retinal images using extreme learning machine

Proliferative diabetic retinopathy is the advanced stage of diabetic retinopathy (DR) resulting in the growth of abnormal vessels on the retinal surface termed as neovascularization. This article primarily deals with the timely detection and classification of retinal images into healthy, neovascularization on optic disc, and elsewhere using an extreme learning machine (ELM) classifier. Initially, a binary mask is employed to enhance the foreground pixels. The resultant image is processed for the extraction of a retinal vessel map using Hessian‐based Frangi filter. For the classification of retinal images, an optimal feature set of 14 features including seven‐moment invariant‐based features are extracted from the vascular map using sequential recursive feature elimination algorithm. Further, the training of the ELM classifier is carried out using the K‐fold cross‐validation technique to improve the performance of the classifier. The proposed method achieves an average accuracy of 98% and an average error rate of less than 0.005 when tested on different globally accessible datasets. Apart from the different statistical results like sensitivity, specificity, and area under curve are estimated as 98.5%, 100%, and 94.2%, respectively, for validating the algorithm. Comparison results reveal that the ELM classifier outperforms the SVM classifier in terms of accuracy and error rate.