Automatic height measurement of central serous chorioretinopathy lesion using a deep learning and adaptive gradient threshold based cascading strategy

Abstract

Accurately quantifying the height of central serous chorioretinopathy (CSCR) lesion is of great significance for assisting ophthalmologists in diagnosing CSCR and evaluating treatment efficacy. The manual measurement results dominated by single optical coherence tomography (OCT) B-scan image in clinical practice face the dilemma of weak reference, poor reproducibility, and experience dependence. In this context, this paper constructs two schemes: Scheme Ⅰ draws on the idea of ensemble learning, namely, integrating multiple models for locating starting key point in the height direction of lesion in the inference stage, which appropriately improves the performance of a single model. Scheme Ⅱ designs an adaptive gradient threshold (AGT) technique, followed by the construction of cascading strategy, which involves preliminary location of starting key point through deep learning, and then employs AGT for precise adjustment. This strategy not only achieves effective location for starting key point, but also significantly reduces the large appetite of deep learning model for training samples. Subsequently, AGT continues to play a crucial role in locating the terminal key point in the height direction of lesion, further demonstrating its feasibility and effectiveness. Quantitative and qualitative key point location experiments in the height direction of lesion on 1152 samples, as well as the final height measurement display, consistently conveys the superiority of the constructed schemes, especially the cascading strategy, expanding another potential tool for the comprehensive analysis of CSCR.