An effective image processing method for detection of diabetic retinopathy diseases from retinal fundus images

Diabetic retinopathy (i.e., DR), is an eye disorder caused by diabetes, diabetic retinopathy detection is an important task in retinal fundus images due the early detection and treatment can potentially reduce the risk of blindness. Retinal fundus images play an important role in diabetic retinopathy through disease diagnosis, disease recognition (i.e., by ophthalmologists), and treatment. The current state-of-the-art techniques are not satisfied with sensitivity and specificity. In fact, there are still other issues to be resolved in state-of-the-art techniques such as performances, accuracy, and easily identify the DR disease effectively. Therefore, this paper proposes an effective image processing method for detection of diabetic retinopathy diseases from retinal fundus images that will satisfy the performance metrics (i.e., sensitivity, specificity, accuracy). The proposed automatic screening system for diabetic retinopathy was conducted in several steps: Pre-processing, optic disc detection and removal, blood vessel segmentation and removal, elimination of fovea, feature extraction (i.e., Micro-aneurysm, retinal hemorrhage, and exudates), feature selection and classification. Finally, a software-based simulation using MATLAB was performed using DIARETDB1 dataset and the obtained results are validated by comparing with expert ophthalmologists. The results of the conducted experiments showed an efficient and effective in sensitivity, specificity and accuracy.