The International Arab Journal of Information Technology (IAJIT)

..............................
..............................
..............................


Automatic Screening of Retinal Lesions for Grading Diabetic Retinopathy

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a diabetical retinal syndrom. Large number of patients have been suffered from blindness due to DR as compared to other diseases. Priliminary detection of DR is a critical quest of medical image processing. Retinal Biomarkers are termed as Microaneurysms (MAs), Haemorrhages (HMAs) and Exudates (EXs) that are helpful to grade Non-Proliferative DR (NPDR) at different stages. This research work contributes an automatic design for the retinal lesions screening to grade DR system. The system is comprised of unique preprocessing determination of biomarkers and formulation of profile set for classification. During preprocessing, Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) is utilized and Independent Component Analysis (ICA) is extended with Curve Fitting Technique (CFT) to eliminate blood vessels and optic disc as well as to detect biomarkers from the digital retinal image. Subsequent, NPDR lesions based distinct eleven features are deduced for the purpose of classification. Experiments are performed using a fundus image database. The proposed method is appropriate for initial grading of DR.


[1] Adali T., Anderson M., and Fu G., “Diversity in Independent Component and Vector Analyses: Identifiability, Algorithms, and Applications in Medical Imaging,” IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 18-33, 2014.

[2] Akram M., Khalid S., and Khan S., “Identification and Classification of Microaneurysms for Early Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy,” Pattern Recognition, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 107-116, 2013.

[3] Akram M., Khalid S., Tariq A., Khan S., and Azam F., “Detection and Classification of Retinal Lesions for Grading of Diabetic 772 The International Arab Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 16, No. 4, July 2019 Retinopathy,” Computers in Biology and Medicine, vol. 45, pp. 161-171, 2014.

[4] Akram M. and Khan S., “Multilayered Thresholding-Based Blood Vessel Segmentation for Screening of Diabetic Retinopathy,” Engineering with Computers, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 165-173, 2013.

[5] Antal B. and Hajdu A., “An Ensemble-Based System for Microaneurysm Detection and Diabetic Retinopathy Grading,” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, vol. 59, no. 6, pp. 1720-1726, 2012.

[6] Belhadi S. and Benblidia N., “Automated Retinal Vessel Segmentation Using Entropic Thresholding Based Spatial Correlation Histogram of Gray Level Images,” The International Arab Journal of Information Technology, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 441-446, 2015.

[7] Fleming A., Philip S., Goatman K., Olson J., and Sharp P., “Automated Microaneurysm Detection Using Local Contrast Normalization and Local Vessel Detection,” IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, vol. 25, no. 9, pp. 1223-1232, 2006.

[8] Frank R., “Diabetic Retinopathy,” Progress in Retinal and Eye Research, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 361- 392, 1995.

[9] Fujita H., Uchiyama Y., Nakagawa T., Fukuoka D., Hatanaka Y., Hara T., Lee G., Hayashi Y., Ikedo Y., and Gao X., “Computer-Aided Diagnosis: The Emerging of Three CAD Systems Induced by Japanese Health Care Needs,” Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, vol. 92, no. 3, pp. 238-248, 2008.

[10] Giancardo L., Karnowski T., Tobin K., Meriaudeau F., and Chaum E., “Validation of Microaneurysm-Based Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Across Retina Fundus Datasets,” in Proceedings of the 26th IEEE International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems, Porto, pp. 125-130, 2013.

[11] Giancardo L., Meriaudeau F., Karnowski T., Li Y., Garg S., Tobin K., and Chaum E., “Exudate- Based Diabetic Macular Edema Detection in Fundus Images Using Publicly Available Datasets,” Medical Image Analysis, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 216-226, 2012.

[12] Hammes H., Lemmen K., and Bertram B., “Diabetic Retinopathy and Maculopathy,” Experimental and Clinical Endocrinology and Diabetes, vol. 122, no. 7, pp. 387-390, 2014.

[13] Hashim M. and Hashim S., “Comparison of Clinical and Textural Approach for Diabetic Retinopathy Grading,” IEEE International Conference on Control System, Computing and Engineering, Penang, pp. 290-295, 2012.

[14] Hasikin K. and Isa N., “Adaptive Fuzzy Contrast Factor Enhancement Technique for Low Contrast and Nonuniform Illumination Images,” Signal, Image and Video Processing, vol. 8, no. 8, pp. 1591-1603, 2014.

[15] Hoover A., “STARE database,” Available: Available: http://www. ces. clemson. edu/~ ahoover/stare, Last Visited, 2016.

[16] Jadoon M., Dineen B., Bourne R., Shah S., Khan M., Johnson G., Gilbert C., and Khan M., “Prevalence of Blindness and Visual Impairment in Pakistan: the Pakistan National Blindness and Visual Impairment Survey,” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol. 47, no. 11, pp. 4749-4755, 2006.

[17] Jindal K., Gupta K., Jain M., and Maheshwari M., “Bio-Medical Image Enhancement Based on Spatial Domain Technique,” in Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Engineering and Technology Research, Unnao, pp. 1-5, 2014.

[18] Jitpakdee P., Aimmanee P., and Uyyanonvara B., “A Survey on Hemorrhage Detection in Diabetic Retinopathy Retinal Images,” in Proceedings of 9th International Conference on Electrical Engineering/Electronics, Computer, Telecommunications and Information Technology, Phetchaburi, pp. 1-4, 2012.

[19] Kahai P., Namuduri K., and Thompson H., “A Decision Support Framework for Automated Screening of Diabetic Retinopathy,” International Journal of Biomedical Imaging, vol. 2006, pp. 8, 2006.

[20] Kauppi T., Kalesnykiene V., Kamarainen J., Lensu L., Sorri I., Raninen A., Voutilainen R., Uusitalo H., Kälviäinen H., and Pietilä J., “The DIARETDB1 Diabetic Retinopathy Database and Evaluation Protocol,” in Proceedings of the British Machine Vision Conference, UK, pp. 1- 18, 2007.

[21] Klein R., Myers C., Lee K., Gangnon R., and Klein B., “Changes in Retinal Vessel Diameter And Incidence and Progression of Diabetic Retinopathy,” Archives of Ophthalmology, vol. 130, no. 6, pp. 749-755, 2012.

[22] Larsen M., Godt J., Larsen N., Lund-Andersen H., Sjølie A., Agardh E., Kalm H., Grunkin M., and Owens D., “Automated Detection of Fundus Photographic Red Lesions in Diabetic Retinopathy,” Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 761-766, 2003.

[23] Lau A., Tang A., Chung B., Yeung P., Wei X., Chan B., Shum H., Wong K., and Tsia K., “High-Throughput Image-Based Single-Cell Analysis by Ultrafast Asymmetric-Detection Time-Stretch Optical Microscopy,” in Proceedings of Bio-Optics: Design and Application: Optical Society of America, Vancouver, pp. BW1A. 4, 2015. Automatic Screening of Retinal Lesions for Grading Diabetic Retinopathy 773

[24] Meyer-Baese A. and Schmid V., Pattern Recognition and Signal Analysis in Medical Imaging, Elsevier, 2014.

[25] Mookiah M., Acharya U., Chua C., Lim C., Ng E., and Laude A., “Computer-Aided Diagnosis of Diabetic Retinopathy: A Review,” Computers in Biology and Medicine, vol. 43, no. 12, pp. 2136- 2155, 2013.

[26] Mubbashar M., Usman A., and Akram M., “Automated System for Macula Detection In Digital Retinal Images,” in Proceedings of International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies, Karachi, pp. 1-5, 2011.

[27] Murray V., Agurto C., Barriga S., Pattichis M., and Soliz P., “Real-time Diabetic Retinopathy Patient Screening Using Multiscale AM-FM Methods,” in Proceedings of 19th IEEE International Conference on Image Processing, Orlando, pp. 525-528, 2012.

[28] Niemeijer M., Abramoff M., and Ginneken B., “Image Structure Clustering for Image Quality Verification of Color Retina Images in Diabetic Retinopathy Screening,” Medical Image Analysis, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 888-898, 2006.

[29] Niemeijer M., Staal J., Van Ginneken B., Loog M., and Abramoff M., “Comparative Study of Retinal Vessel Segmentation Methods on A New Publicly Available Database,” in Proceedings of Medical Imaging International Society for Optics and Photonics, San Diego, pp. 648-656, 2004.

[30] Niemeijer M., Van Ginneken B., Cree M., Mizutani A., Quellec G., Sánchez C., Zhang B., Hornero R., Lamard M., Muramatsu C., Wu X., Cazuguel G., You J., Mayo A., Li Q., Hatanaka Y., Cochener B., Roux C., Karray F., Garcia M., Fujita H., and Abramoff M., “Retinopathy Online Challenge: Automatic Detection of Microaneurysms in Digital Color Fundus Photographs,” IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, vol. 29, no.1, pp. 185-195, 2010.

[31] Orton E., Forbes-Haley A., Tunbridge L., and Cohen S., “Equity of Uptake of A Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Programme in A Geographically and Socio-Economically Diverse Population,” Public Health, vol. 127, no. 9, pp. 814-821, 2013.

[32] Osareh A., Mirmehdi M., Thomas B., and Markham R., “Automated Identification of Diabetic Retinal Exudates in Digital Colour Images,” British Journal of Ophthalmology, vol. 87, no.10, pp. 1220-1223, 2003.

[33] Qureshi R., Kovacs L., Harangi B., Nagy B., Peto T., and Hajdu A., “Combining Algorithms for Automatic Detection of Optic Disc and Macula in Fundus Images,” Computer Vision and Image Understanding. vol. 116, no. 1, pp. 138-145, 2012.

[34] Raja S. and Vasuki S., “Screening Diabetic Retinopathy in Developing Countries using Retinal Images,” Applied Medical Informatic, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 13-22, 2015.

[35] Ranamuka N. and Meegama R., “Detection of Hard Exudates from Diabetic Retinopathy Images Using Fuzzy Logic,” IET Image Processing, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 121-130, 2013.

[36] Singh R., Roy S., and Singh M., “Histogram Domain Adaptive Power Law Applications in Image Enhancement Technique,” International Journal of Computer Science and Information Technologies, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 3972-3978, 2014.

[37] Saleh M. and Eswaran C., “An Automated Decision-Support System for Non-Proliferative Diabetic Retinopathy Disease Based on Mas and Has Detection,” Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, vol. 108, no. 1, pp. 186-196, 2012.

[38] Sánchez C., Niemeijer M., Išgum I., Dumitrescu A., Suttorp-Schulten M., Abràmoff M., and Van Ginneken B., “Contextual Computer-Aided Detection: Improving Bright Lesion Detection in Retinal Images and Coronary Calcification Identification in CT Scans,” Medical Image Analysis, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 50-62, 2012.

[39] Sharma P., Nirmala S., and Sarma K., “A System for Grading Diabetic Maculopathy Severity Level,” Network Modeling Analysis in Health Informatics and Bioinformatics, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1-9, 2014.

[40] Sinthanayothin C., Boyce J., Williamson T., Cook H., Mensah E., Lal S., and Usher D., “Automated Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy On Digital Fundus Images,” Diabetic Medicine, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 105-112, 2002.

[41] Sonka M., Hlavac V., and Boyle R., Image Processing, Analysis, and Machine Vision: Cengage Learning, 2014.

[42] Sopharak A., Uyyanonvara B., Barman S., and Williamson T., “Automatic Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy Exudates from Non- Dilated Retinal Images Using Mathematical Morphology Methods,” Computerized Medical Imaging and Graphics, vol. 32, no. 8, pp. 720- 727, 2008.

[43] Sree V. and Rao P., “Hardware Implementation of Enhancement of Retinal Fundus Image Using Simulink,” in Proceedings of IEEE Asia Pacific Conference on Postgraduate Research in Microelectronics and Electronics (PrimeAsia), Visakhapatnam, pp. 239-244, 2013.

[44] Staal J., Abràmoff M., Niemeijer M., Viergever M., and Van Ginneken B., “Ridge-Based Vessel Segmentation in Color Images of The Retina,” IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 501-509, 2004. 774 The International Arab Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 16, No. 4, July 2019

[45] Tariq A., Akram M., and Javed M., “Computer Aided Diagnostic System for Grading of Diabetic Retinopathy,” in Proceedings of 4th International Workshop on Computational Intelligence in Medical Imaging, Singapore, pp. 30-35, 2013.

[46] Thamman P., Purcitm P., and Verma A., “Contrast Enhancement of Medical Images-A Review,” International Journal of Innovations and Advancement in Computer Science, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 124-128, 2014.

[47] Walter T., Massin P., Erginay A., Ordonez R., Jeulin C., and Klein J., “Automatic Detection of Microaneurysms in Color Fundus Images,” Medical Image Analysis, vol. 11, no. 6, pp. 555- 566, 2007.

[48] Watkins P., “ABC of Diabetes: Retinopathy,” British Medical Journal, vol. 326, no. 7395, pp. 924-926, 2003.

[49] Wendt G., Screening for Diabetic Retinopathy Aspects of Photographic Methods, Thesis, Karolinska Institutet, 2005.

[50] Yadav G., Maheshwari S., and Agarwal A., “Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization Based Enhancement for Real Time Video System,” in Proceedings of International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics, New Delhi, pp. 2392-2397, 2014.

[51] Yun W., Rajendra Acharya U., Venkatesh Y., Chee C., Min L., and Ng E., “Identification of Different Stages of Diabetic Retinopathy Using Retinal Optical Images,” Information Sciences, vol. 178, no. 1, pp. 106-121, 2008. Muhammad Sharif Ph.D., is Associate Professor at COMSATS, Wah Cantt Pakistan. His area of specialization is Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing. He is into teaching field from 1995 till date. He has 110 plus research publications in IF, SCI and ISI journals, national and international conferences. Up till now he has supervised 25 MS(CS) thesis. He is currently supervising 5 Ph.D.(CS) students and co-supervisor of 5 others. More than 200 undergraduate students had already been passed out after successful completion of their project work under his supervision. His research interests are Image Processing, Computer Networks & Security, and Algorithms Design and Analysis. Jamal Hussain Shah is a Ph.D. Scholar at University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), China. He is graduated from COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Pakistan in 2011. His areas of interest are Digital Image Processing and Networking. Mr. Jamal has more than five years of experience of teaching and IT related projects.