Comparative analysis of retinal fundus images with the distant past images using a vessel extraction technique

Abstract

There are ophthalmological diseases accompanied with remarkable deformation or expansion of posterior shape of eyeballs such as high myopia. We proposed a three-dimensional quantitative analysis tool for posterior shape of eyeballs without invasion using 3D-MRI. In order to progress a further research of this disease, a long-term follow-up study is important. We have tried to analyze a collection of retinal images including several photographs shot about 20–30 years ago. However, it is difficult to correct the past images more than 20 year ago for comparing them with recent images of the same case, only by photographical parameters. Therefore, we have developed a registration tool for retinal images by aligning vessel patterns extracted from retinal images for comparative analysis. Using this tool, we have tried 150 pairs of retinal images in high myopia cases, and vessel patterns of 136 pairs could be properly extracted and used for registration.