Digital Diagnosis of Diabetic Retinopathy using Fundus Images

Abstract

Diabetic retinopathy is a condition where the retina of the eye is affected due to diabetes. It eventually leads to blindness. It is a systemic disease which is an ocular manifestation of diabetes. It affects almost 80 percent of people with prolonged and acute diabetes for 20 years or more. Inspite of these intimidating statistics, advanced researchers propose that monitoring of eyes enables earlier detection of symptoms that can help reduce blinding of eyes by more than 90%. United States, records 12% of all new cases of blindness due to diabetic retinopathy. It is also the leading cause of blindness for people aged 20 to 64 years. Therefore serious efforts are being taken by engineers to develop efficient ways of detecting this diabetic retinopathy through image processing of fundus images. Automated Blood Vessel Extraction algorithms save time, protects patient’s vision and reduces unwanted medical costly treatments. This paper analyzes on the image of human eye captured from the fundus camera and proposes a methodology for detection of Diabetic Retinopathy using Image Enhancement.