EXUDATES DETECTION AND CLASSIFICATION ALGORITHM OF DIABETIC PATIENTS' RETINA IMAGES

Abstract

The chronic hyperglycemia of diabetes is associated with long-term damage, dysfunction, and failure of different organs, especially the eyes, kidneys, nerves, heart and blood vessels. The regular examination of diabetic patients can potentially reduce the risk of vision impairment and in the last instance blindness. Early diabetic retinopathy detection enables application of laser therapy treatment in order to prevent or delay loss of vision. The diagnostics and detection of diabetic retinopathy is performed by specialized ophthalmologists manually and represents expensive procedure. Automatic exudates detection and retina images classification would be helpful for reducing diabetic retinopathy screening costs and encouraging regular examinations. We proposed the automated algorithm that applies mathematical modeling which enables light intensity levels emphasis, easier exudates detection, efficient and correct classification of retina images. The proposed algorithm is robust to various appearance changes of retinal fundus images which are usually processed in clinical environments.