Abstract
Existing drusen measurement is difficult to use in clinic because it requires a lot of time and effort for visual inspection. In order to resolve this problem, we propose an automatic drusen detection method to help clinical diagnosis of age-related macular degeneration. First, we changed the fundus image to a green channel and extracted the ROI of the macular area based on the optic disk. Next, we detected the candidate group using the difference image of the median filter within the ROI. We also segmented vessels and removed them from the image. Finally, we detected the drusen through Renyi's entropy threshold algorithm. We performed comparisons and statistical analysis between the manual detection results and automatic detection results for 30 cases in order to verify validity. As a result, the average sensitivity was 93.37% (80.95%~100%) and the average DSC was 0.73 (0.3~0.98). In addition, the value of the ICC was 0.984 (CI: 0.967~0.993, p < 0.01), showing the high reliability of the proposed automatic method. We expect that the automatic drusen detection helps clinicians to improve the diagnostic performance in the detection of drusen on fundus image.
Highlights
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a significant cause of visual impairment in the United States
AMD affects more than 1.75 million individuals in the United States, and it is estimated that this number will increase to 3 million by 2020 [1]
Existing drusen measurement is difficult to use in clinic because it requires a lot of time and effort for visual inspection
Summary
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a significant cause of visual impairment in the United States. The incidence of AMD will continue to rise with the growing elderly population, resulting in visual disability, a decrease in quality of life, and an increase in the risk of falls, fractures, depression, and mortality [2, 3]. Hard drusen which is able to progress to soft drusen can be found in all age groups and is largely irrelevant to macular degeneration. Soft drusen which develops choroidal neovascularization causing visual loss can be found among the elderly and is relevant to macular degeneration [5]. As the macular degeneration still lacks effective treatment, the prevention is important: prevention of the progression of hard drusen into soft drusen by continuous measurement. Quantitative measurement of drusen is very important to prevent macular degeneration. The influence of subjective decision makes manual measurement less reliable
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