Automatic Identification of Macular Edema in Optical Coherence Tomography Images

Abstract

[Absctract]: This paper proposes a novel system for the simultaneous identification and characterization of the three types of Macular Edema (ME) in Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). These MEs are clinically defined, by the reference classification of the field, as: Serous Retinal Detachment (SRD), Diffuse Retinal Thickening (DRT) and Cystoid Macular Edema (CME). Our system uses multilevel image thresholding approaches to identify the SRD and CME cases and a learning approach for the DRT identification. The system provided promising results with F-Measures of 83.35% and 81.95% for the DRT and CME detections, respectively. It was also efficient in detecting all the SRD cases included in the testing image dataset. The system was able to identify individually the different types of ME on the OCT images but it was also capable to detect simultaneously the existence of the three ME cases when they appeared merged in the lower retinal layers.