An ensemble framework based on Deep CNNs architecture for glaucoma classification using fundus photography

Multi-stage glaucoma classification using pre-trained convolutional neural networks and voting-based classifier fusion

Aim: To design an automated glaucoma detection system for early detection of glaucoma using fundus images. Background: Glaucoma is a serious eye problem that can cause vision loss and even permanent blindness. Early detection and prevention are crucial for effective treatment. Traditional diagnostic approaches are time consuming, manual, and often inaccurate, thus making automated glaucoma diagnosis necessary. Objective: To propose an automated glaucoma stage classification model using pre-trained deep convolutional neural network (CNN) models and classifier fusion. Methods: The proposed model utilized five pre-trained CNN models: ResNet50, AlexNet, VGG19, DenseNet-201, and Inception-ResNet-v2. The model was tested using four public datasets: ACRIMA, RIM-ONE, Harvard Dataverse (HVD), and Drishti. Classifier fusion was created to merge the decisions of all CNN models using the maximum voting-based approach. Results: The proposed model achieved an area under the curve of 1 and an accuracy of 99.57% for the ACRIMA dataset. The HVD dataset had an area under the curve of 0.97 and an accuracy of 85.43%. The accuracy rates for Drishti and RIM-ONE were 90.55 and 94.95%, respectively. The experimental results showed that the proposed model performed better than the state-of-the-art methods in classifying glaucoma in its early stages. Understanding the model output includes both attribution-based methods such as activations and gradient class activation map and perturbation-based methods such as locally interpretable model-agnostic explanations and occlusion sensitivity, which generate heatmaps of various sections of an image for model prediction. Conclusion: The proposed automated glaucoma stage classification model using pre-trained CNN models and classifier fusion is an effective method for the early detection of glaucoma. The results indicate high accuracy rates and superior performance compared to the existing methods.

A Novel Context Aware Joint Segmentation and Classification Framework for Glaucoma Detection

Glaucoma is a chronic ocular disease characterized by damage to the optic nerve resulting in progressive and irreversible visual loss. Early detection and timely clinical interventions are critical in improving glaucoma-related outcomes. As a typical and complicated ocular disease, glaucoma detection presents a unique challenge due to its insidious onset and high intra- and interpatient variabilities. Recent studies have demonstrated that robust glaucoma detection systems can be realized with deep learning approaches. The optic disc (OD) is the most commonly studied retinal structure for screening and diagnosing glaucoma. This paper proposes a novel context aware deep learning framework called GD-YNet, for OD segmentation and glaucoma detection. It leverages the potential of aggregated transformations and the simplicity of the YNet architecture in context aware OD segmentation and binary classification for glaucoma detection. Trained with the RIGA and RIMOne-V2 datasets, this model achieves glaucoma detection accuracies of 99.72%, 98.02%, 99.50%, and 99.41% with the ACRIMA, Drishti-gs, REFUGE, and RIMOne-V1 datasets. Further, the proposed model can be extended to a multiclass segmentation and classification model for glaucoma staging and severity assessment.