Image processing techniques for glaucoma detection

Abstract

Glaucoma is a disease caused due to neurodegeneration of the optic nerve which leads to blindness. It can be evaluated by monitoring intra ocular pressure (IOP), visual field and the optic disc appearance (cup-to-disc ratio). Glaucoma increases the cup to disc ratio (CDR), affecting the peripheral vision loss. This paper addresses the various image processing techniques to diagnose the glaucoma based on the CDR evaluation of preprocessed fundus images. These algorithms are tested on publicly available fundus images and the results are compared. The accuracy of these algorithms is evaluated by sensitivity and specificity. The sensitivity and specificity for these algorithms are found to be very favorable. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.