The DIARETDB1 diabetic retinopathy database and evaluation protocol

Abstract

Automatic diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy from digital fundus images has been an active research topic in the medical image processing community. The research interest is justified by the excellent potential for new products in the medical industry and significant reductions in health care costs. However, the maturity of proposed algorithms cannot be judged due to the lack of commonly accepted and representative image database with a verified ground truth and strict evaluation protocol. In this study, an evaluation methodology is proposed and an image database with ground truth is described. The database is publicly available for benchmarking diagnosis algorithms. With the proposed database and protocol, it is possible to compare different algorithms, and correspondingly, analyse their maturity for technology transfer from the research laboratories to the medical practice.