Automated Pre-screening of Diabetic Retinopathy

Abstract

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a complication of diabetes mellitus (DM). The high blood glucose concentration damages small blood vessels in the retina. Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a progressive disease which is the most common cause of blindness. The disease progresses without any noticeable symptoms until the damage occurred. Early detection of this disease together with timely treatment can limit vision loss. Retinal image grading is crucial for the prevention of visual loss but it is also a time consuming task. The Micro-aneurysm (MA) is the first sign of DR. The automatic detection of Micro-aneurysms (MAs) is an important and challenging research problem. This work presents an analysis of the failure modes of current automatic MA detection algorithms. It shows that such algorithms are confused by vascular structures. A method to improve algorithm performance by discarding vascular structures is proposed and analysed.

Date of Award	31 Dec 2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	John Oakley (Supervisor) & Fumie Costen (Supervisor)