Deep learning based MA detection with modified ResNet-50

Abstract

A deep understanding of retinal images is used to identify vascular diseases, such as Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) in individuals who experience high blood sugar levels and high blood pressure. DR is a progressive disease that starts from minute red saccular out pouches on blood vessels known as Micro-Aneurysm (MA). DR can be cured by eradicating MA on the retina. Detecting microaneurysms (MAs) in retinal digital images is a challenging task due to various factors. These factors include the diverse sizes, shapes, levels of noise, and contrasts exhibited by the images found in the publicly available datasets for Diabetic Retinopathy (DR). Moreover, the limited number of labelled examples in these datasets and the inherent difficulty faced by deep learning algorithms in accurately identifying small objects in retinal digital images further contribute to the complexity involved in MA detection. Here proposing a Deep Learning based MA detection using modified ResNet-50 with a Support Vector Machine. The suggested approach was training, tuning, and evaluation, both qualitatively and quantitatively, using publicly available datasets like E-ophthaMA and DIARETDB1. The suggested approach demonstrates improved outcomes in terms of time efficiency and resource utilisation.