Detection of glaucoma using three-stage training with EfficientNet

[EN] This paper sets forth a methodology that is based on three-stage-training of a state-of-the-art network architecture previously trained on Imagenet, and iteratively finetuned in three steps; freezing first all layers, then re-training a specific number of them and finally training all the architecture from scratch, to achieve a system with high accuracy and reliability. To determine the performance of our technique a dataset consisting of 17.070 color cropped samples of fundus images, and that includes two classes, normal and abnormal, is used. Extensive evaluations using baselines models (VGG16, InceptionV3 and Resnet50) are carried out, in addition to thorough experimentation with the proposed pipeline using variants of EfficientNet and EfficientNetV2. The training procedure is described accurately, putting emphasis on the number of parameters trained, the confusion matrices (with analysis of false positives and false negatives), accuracy, and F1-score obtained at each stage of the proposed methodology. The results achieved show that the intelligent system presented for the task at hand is reliable, presents high precision, its predictions are consistent and the number of parameters needed to train are low compared to other alternatives.This work is supported by the HK Innovation and Technology Commission (InnoHK Project CIMDA), the HK Research Grants Council (Project CityU 11204821) and City University of Hong Kong (Project 9610034). We acknowledge the support of Universitat Politècnica de València; R&D project PID2021-122580NB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and ERDF.De Zarzà, I.; De Curtò, J.; Tavares De Araujo Cesariny Calafate, CM. (2022). Detection of glaucoma using three-stage training with EfficientNet. Intelligent Systems with Applications. 16:1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iswa.2022.2001401101

DEVELOPING A REAL TIME ALGORITHM FOR DIAGNOSING GLAUCOMA

A Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases causing optic nerve damage and if not detected at an early stage it may cause permanent blindness. Glaucoma progression precedes some structural damage to the retina are the symptoms of Glaucoma. Manually, it is diagnosed by examination of size, structure, shape, and color of optic disc and optic cup and retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL), which suffer from the subjectivity of human due to experience, fatigue factor etc., and with the widespread of higher quality medical imaging techniques, there are increasing demands for computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems for glaucoma detection, because the human mistakes, other retinal diseases like Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) affecting in early glaucoma detection, and the existing medical devices like Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and Heidelberg Retinal Tomography (HRT) are expensive. This paper proposes a novel algorithm by extract 13 shape features from disc and cup, extract 25 texture features from RNFL(retinal nerve fiber layer) using gray level co-occurrence method and Tamara algorithm and 3 color features for each of disc and cup and RNFL. Next, best features selected using two methods, first method is the student t-test and the second method applied was the Sequential Feature Selection (SFS) to introduce the best 6 features. The evaluation of proposed algorithm is performed using a RIM_ONE and DRISHTI-GS databases, the average accuracy 97%, maximize area under curve (AUC) 0.99, specificity 96.6% and sensitivity 98.4% using support vector machine classifier (SVM). Future works suggested to design a complete, automated system not just diagnose glaucoma but calculate the progress of the disease too

CNNs for automatic glaucoma assessment using fundus images: an extensive validation

Background Most current algorithms for automatic glaucoma assessment using fundus images rely on handcrafted features based on segmentation, which are affected by the performance of the chosen segmentation method and the extracted features. Among other characteristics, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are known because of their ability to learn highly discriminative features from raw pixel intensities. Methods In this paper, we employed five different ImageNet-trained models (VGG16, VGG19, InceptionV3, ResNet50 and Xception) for automatic glaucoma assessment using fundus images. Results from an extensive validation using cross-validation and cross-testing strategies were compared with previous works in the literature. Results Using five public databases (1707 images), an average AUC of 0.9605 with a 95% confidence interval of 95.92–97.07%, an average specificity of 0.8580 and an average sensitivity of 0.9346 were obtained after using the Xception architecture, significantly improving the performance of other state-of-the-art works. Moreover, a new clinical database, ACRIMA, has been made publicly available, containing 705 labelled images. It is composed of 396 glaucomatous images and 309 normal images, which means, the largest public database for glaucoma diagnosis. The high specificity and sensitivity obtained from the proposed approach are supported by an extensive validation using not only the cross-validation strategy but also the cross-testing validation on, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, all publicly available glaucoma-labelled databases. Conclusions These results suggest that using ImageNet-trained models is a robust alternative for automatic glaucoma screening system. All images, CNN weights and software used to fine-tune and test the five CNNs are publicly available, which could be used as a testbed for further comparisons

Machine Learning for Glaucoma Assessment using Fundus Images

[ES] Las imágenes de fondo de ojo son muy utilizadas por los oftalmólogos para la evaluación de la retina y la detección de glaucoma. Esta patología es la segunda causa de ceguera en el mundo, según estudios de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS). En esta tesis doctoral, se estudian algoritmos de aprendizaje automático (machine learning) para la evaluación automática del glaucoma usando imágenes de fondo de ojo. En primer lugar, se proponen dos métodos para la segmentación automática. El primer método utiliza la transformación Watershed Estocástica para segmentar la copa óptica y posteriormente medir características clínicas como la relación Copa/Disco y la regla ISNT. El segundo método es una arquitectura U-Net que se usa específicamente para la segmentación del disco óptico y la copa óptica. A continuación, se presentan sistemas automáticos de evaluación del glaucoma basados en redes neuronales convolucionales (CNN por sus siglas en inglés). En este enfoque se utilizan diferentes modelos entrenados en ImageNet como clasificadores automáticos de glaucoma, usando fine-tuning. Esta nueva técnica permite detectar el glaucoma sin segmentación previa o extracción de características. Además, este enfoque presenta una mejora considerable del rendimiento comparado con otros trabajos del estado del arte. En tercer lugar, dada la dificultad de obtener grandes cantidades de imágenes etiquetadas (glaucoma/no glaucoma), esta tesis también aborda el problema de la síntesis de imágenes de la retina. En concreto se analizaron dos arquitecturas diferentes para la síntesis de imágenes, las arquitecturas Variational Autoencoder (VAE) y la Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN). Con estas arquitecturas se generaron imágenes sintéticas que se analizaron cualitativa y cuantitativamente, obteniendo un rendimiento similar a otros trabajos en la literatura. Finalmente, en esta tesis se plantea la utilización de un tipo de GAN (DCGAN) como alternativa a los sistemas automáticos de evaluación del glaucoma presentados anteriormente. Para alcanzar este objetivo se implementó un algoritmo de aprendizaje semi-supervisado.[CA] Les imatges de fons d'ull són molt utilitzades pels oftalmòlegs per a l'avaluació de la retina i la detecció de glaucoma. Aquesta patologia és la segona causa de ceguesa al món, segons estudis de l'Organització Mundial de la Salut (OMS). En aquesta tesi doctoral, s'estudien algoritmes d'aprenentatge automàtic (machine learning) per a l'avaluació automàtica del glaucoma usant imatges de fons d'ull. En primer lloc, es proposen dos mètodes per a la segmentació automàtica. El primer mètode utilitza la transformació Watershed Estocàstica per segmentar la copa òptica i després mesurar característiques clíniques com la relació Copa / Disc i la regla ISNT. El segon mètode és una arquitectura U-Net que s'usa específicament per a la segmentació del disc òptic i la copa òptica. A continuació, es presenten sistemes automàtics d'avaluació del glaucoma basats en xarxes neuronals convolucionals (CNN per les sigles en anglès). En aquest enfocament s'utilitzen diferents models entrenats en ImageNet com classificadors automàtics de glaucoma, usant fine-tuning. Aquesta nova tècnica permet detectar el glaucoma sense segmentació prèvia o extracció de característiques. A més, aquest enfocament presenta una millora considerable del rendiment comparat amb altres treballs de l'estat de l'art. En tercer lloc, donada la dificultat d'obtenir grans quantitats d'imatges etiquetades (glaucoma / no glaucoma), aquesta tesi també aborda el problema de la síntesi d'imatges de la retina. En concret es van analitzar dues arquitectures diferents per a la síntesi d'imatges, les arquitectures Variational Autoencoder (VAE) i la Generative adversarial Networks (GAN). Amb aquestes arquitectures es van generar imatges sintètiques que es van analitzar qualitativament i quantitativament, obtenint un rendiment similar a altres treballs a la literatura. Finalment, en aquesta tesi es planteja la utilització d'un tipus de GAN (DCGAN) com a alternativa als sistemes automàtics d'avaluació del glaucoma presentats anteriorment. Per assolir aquest objectiu es va implementar un algoritme d'aprenentatge semi-supervisat.[EN] Fundus images are widely used by ophthalmologists to assess the retina and detect glaucoma, which is, according to studies from the World Health Organization (WHO), the second cause of blindness worldwide. In this thesis, machine learning algorithms for automatic glaucoma assessment using fundus images are studied. First, two methods for automatic segmentation are proposed. The first method uses the Stochastic Watershed transformation to segment the optic cup and measures clinical features such as the Cup/Disc ratio and ISNT rule. The second method is a U-Net architecture focused on the optic disc and optic cup segmentation task. Secondly, automated glaucoma assessment systems using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are presented. In this approach, different ImageNet-trained models are fine-tuned and used as automatic glaucoma classifiers. These new techniques allow detecting glaucoma without previous segmentation or feature extraction. Moreover, it improves the performance of other state-of-art works. Thirdly, given the difficulty of getting large amounts of glaucoma-labelled images, this thesis addresses the problem of retinal image synthesis. Two different architectures for image synthesis, the Variational Autoencoder (VAE) and Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) architectures, were analysed. Using these models, synthetic images that were qualitative and quantitative analysed, reporting state-of-the-art performance, were generated. Finally, an adversarial model is used to create an alternative automatic glaucoma assessment system. In this part, a semi-supervised learning algorithm was implemented to reach this goal.The research derived from this doctoral thesis has been supported by the Generalitat Valenciana under the scholarship Santiago Grisolía [GRISOLIA/2015/027].Díaz Pinto, AY. (2019). Machine Learning for Glaucoma Assessment using Fundus Images [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/124351TESI

Qhaway: una herramienta de apoyo para el diagnóstico del glaucoma con aprendizaje profundo

Propone un método para el diagnóstico del glaucoma basado en un modelo híbrido de modelos DL, con el cual usando imágenes del fondo de ojo de un paciente se consigue hacer el diagnóstico con alta precisión. Se consideró la integración de los dataset públicos de glaucoma HRF, Drishti-GS1, sjchoi86-HRF, RIM-ONE y ACRIMA, con un total de 1707 imágenes (919 normal y 788 glaucoma) del fondo de ojo, un modelo híbrido de Voting sobre los modelos de DL ResNet50 con dos tipos de fine tuning y ResNet50V2, y la implementación usando Keras y Tensor Flow, con lo que se consiguió un diagnóstico con exactitud del 96.55%, sensibilidad del 98.54% y especificidad del 94.32%. Además, los experimentos numéricos muestran que el aprendizaje usando 5 bases de datos permite mejores resultados que por separado, incluso aplicando transfer learning, también muestran que el modelo híbrido voting genera una exactitud superior en 20.69% a la mejor exactitud obtenido por el mejor modelo de DL (DenseNet169) usando un dataset, 13.22% al mejor modelo (ResNet50V2) usando transfer learning con los 5 datasets, y 1.72% al mejor modelo (ResNet50) considerando los 5 dataset