Abstract
Topological characterization of the Retinal microvascular nEtwork visualized by portable fuNDus camera (TREND) is a database comprising of 72 color digital retinal images collected from the students of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montenegro, in the period from February 18th to March 11th 2020. The database also includes binarized images of manually segmented microvascular networks associated with each raw image. The participant demographic characteristics, health status, and social habits information such as age, sex, body mass index, smoking history, alcohol use, as well as previous medical history was collected. As proof of the concept, a smaller set of 10 color digital fundus images from healthy older participants is also included. Comparison of the microvascular parameters of these two sets of images demonstrate that digital fundus images recorded with a hand-held portable camera are able to capture the changes in patterns of microvascular network associated with aging. The raw images from the TREND database provide a standard that defines normal retinal anatomy and microvascular network geometry in young healthy people in Montenegro as it is seen with the digital hand-held portable non-mydriatic MiiS HORUS Scope DEC 200.This knowledge could facilitate the application of this technology at the primary level of health care for large scale telematic screening for complications of chronic diseases, such as hypertensive and diabetic retinopathy. In addition, it could aid in the development of new methods for early detection of age-related changes in the retina, systemic chronic diseases, as well as eye-specific diseases. The associated manually segmented images of the microvascular networks provide the standard that can be used for development of automatic software for image quality assessment, segmentation of microvascular network, and for computer-aided detection of pathological changes in retina. The TREND database is freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4521043.
Highlights
Examination of retinal fundus images is a well known and widely accepted diagnostic approach used to diagnose numerous ocular diseases, as well as to detect ocular complications of some chronic systemic diseases
Retinal microvascular network patterns have been studied extensively for their use in early detection of ocular and systemic diseases, as well as physiologic changes associated with normal aging [1, 2]
Decreased retinal microvascular complexity has been found in hypertension and diabetes [3,4,5,6]
Summary
Examination of retinal fundus images is a well known and widely accepted diagnostic approach used to diagnose numerous ocular diseases, as well as to detect ocular complications of some chronic systemic diseases. Decreased vascular complexity measured by fractal analysis is observed in glaucoma [2] For this reason, the methods used to characterize retinal microvascular network geometry currently yield relatively non-specific information. The method of visualization of the retinal microvasculature through the eye could be currently considered as “a window to health”, because it allows the assessment of general health status of an individual by applying non-invasive technologies The specificity of this approach could be increased in the future by characterization of microvascular patterns associated with certain conditions by using more than one parameter at a time [8]. Development of efficient and accurate computer-aided image analysis systems to study these data sets could save time [9]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
