Deep Transfer Learning Strategy to Diagnose Eye-Related Conditions and Diseases: An Approach Based on Low-Quality Fundus Images

Data from the World Health Organization indicate that billion cases of visual impairment could be avoided, mainly with regular examinations. However, the absence of specialists in basic health units has resulted in a lack of accurate diagnosis of systemic or asymptomatic eye diseases, increasing the...

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Main Authors: Gabriel D. A. Aranha, Ricardo A. S. Fernandes, Paulo H. A. Morales
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2023-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10089439/
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author Gabriel D. A. Aranha
Ricardo A. S. Fernandes
Paulo H. A. Morales
author_facet Gabriel D. A. Aranha
Ricardo A. S. Fernandes
Paulo H. A. Morales
author_sort Gabriel D. A. Aranha
collection DOAJ
description Data from the World Health Organization indicate that billion cases of visual impairment could be avoided, mainly with regular examinations. However, the absence of specialists in basic health units has resulted in a lack of accurate diagnosis of systemic or asymptomatic eye diseases, increasing the cases of blindness. In this context, the present paper proposes an ensemble of convolutional neural networks, which were submitted to a transfer learning process by using 38,727 high-quality fundus images. Next, the ensemble was tested with 13,000 low-quality fundus images acquired by low-cost equipment. Thus, the proposed approach contributes to advance the state-of-the-art in terms of: (i) validating the proposed transfer learning strategy by recognizing eye-related conditions and diseases in low-quality images; (ii) using high-quality images obtained by high-cost equipment only to train the predictive models; and (iii) reaching results comparable to the state-of-the-art, even using low-quality images. This way, the proposed approach represents a novel deep transfer learning strategy, that is more suitable and feasible to be applied by public health systems of emerging and under-developing countries. From low-quality images, the proposed approach was able to reach accuracies of 87.4%, 90.8%, 87.5%, 79.1% to classify cataract, diabetic retinopathy, excavation and blood vessels, respectively.
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spelling doaj.art-53adb7481b9a4624bf7d3c68faa91e232023-04-25T23:00:17ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362023-01-0111374033741110.1109/ACCESS.2023.326349310089439Deep Transfer Learning Strategy to Diagnose Eye-Related Conditions and Diseases: An Approach Based on Low-Quality Fundus ImagesGabriel D. A. Aranha0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2898-1440Ricardo A. S. Fernandes1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2361-6505Paulo H. A. Morales2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3838-1040Graduate Program in Computer Science, Federal University of São Carlos, São Carlos, São Paulo, BrazilGraduate Program in Computer Science, Federal University of São Carlos, São Carlos, São Paulo, BrazilDepartment of Ophthalmology, Federal University of São Carlos, São Carlos, São Paulo, BrazilData from the World Health Organization indicate that billion cases of visual impairment could be avoided, mainly with regular examinations. However, the absence of specialists in basic health units has resulted in a lack of accurate diagnosis of systemic or asymptomatic eye diseases, increasing the cases of blindness. In this context, the present paper proposes an ensemble of convolutional neural networks, which were submitted to a transfer learning process by using 38,727 high-quality fundus images. Next, the ensemble was tested with 13,000 low-quality fundus images acquired by low-cost equipment. Thus, the proposed approach contributes to advance the state-of-the-art in terms of: (i) validating the proposed transfer learning strategy by recognizing eye-related conditions and diseases in low-quality images; (ii) using high-quality images obtained by high-cost equipment only to train the predictive models; and (iii) reaching results comparable to the state-of-the-art, even using low-quality images. This way, the proposed approach represents a novel deep transfer learning strategy, that is more suitable and feasible to be applied by public health systems of emerging and under-developing countries. From low-quality images, the proposed approach was able to reach accuracies of 87.4%, 90.8%, 87.5%, 79.1% to classify cataract, diabetic retinopathy, excavation and blood vessels, respectively.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10089439/Convolutional neural networkdeep learningeye-related conditionsfundus imagestransfer learning
spellingShingle Gabriel D. A. Aranha
Ricardo A. S. Fernandes
Paulo H. A. Morales
Deep Transfer Learning Strategy to Diagnose Eye-Related Conditions and Diseases: An Approach Based on Low-Quality Fundus Images
IEEE Access
Convolutional neural network
deep learning
eye-related conditions
fundus images
transfer learning
title Deep Transfer Learning Strategy to Diagnose Eye-Related Conditions and Diseases: An Approach Based on Low-Quality Fundus Images
title_full Deep Transfer Learning Strategy to Diagnose Eye-Related Conditions and Diseases: An Approach Based on Low-Quality Fundus Images
title_fullStr Deep Transfer Learning Strategy to Diagnose Eye-Related Conditions and Diseases: An Approach Based on Low-Quality Fundus Images
title_full_unstemmed Deep Transfer Learning Strategy to Diagnose Eye-Related Conditions and Diseases: An Approach Based on Low-Quality Fundus Images
title_short Deep Transfer Learning Strategy to Diagnose Eye-Related Conditions and Diseases: An Approach Based on Low-Quality Fundus Images
title_sort deep transfer learning strategy to diagnose eye related conditions and diseases an approach based on low quality fundus images
topic Convolutional neural network
deep learning
eye-related conditions
fundus images
transfer learning
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10089439/
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