Glaucoma identification with retinal fundus images using deep learning: Systematic review

Abstract

Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness, affecting millions of people worldwide. It is a chronic eye condition that damages the optic nerve and, if left untreated, can lead to vision loss and a decreased quality of life. Therefore, there is a need to explore practical and reliable mechanisms for glaucoma identification. This study systematically reviews deep-learning approaches for glaucoma identification using retinal fundus images from 2018 to 2024. Compared to existing survey studies, we cover the latest research, including several public retinal fundus image datasets, and focus on segmentation, classification based on convolutional neural networks and vision transformers, and explainability. The findings of this study, including comparisons of existing methods and key insights, will assist researchers and developers in identifying the most suitable techniques for glaucoma detection.