Automatic Detection of Microaneurysms in Retinal Images

Abstract

Early stage symptom of the diabetic retinopathy is Microaneurysms (MAs). Diabetic retinopathy is graded with the help of number of MAs in fundus image. Detection of MAs in initial stage of diabetic retinopathy may prevent the vision loss. In this work a new approach is proposed for finding the MAs in fundus image. This method follows the three steps for detection of MAs. Enhancement of local contrast of the fundus image and removal of blood vessels are completed in first two steps. In the last step, MAs are detected based on the size and shape features. The proposed method is tested on DIARETDB1 database. The proposed method achieved sensitivity of 87.5% for recognizing MAs in fundus images.