Automatic Characterization of the serous Retinal Detachment Associated with the subretinal Fluid Presence in Optical Coherence Tomography Images

Abstract

An accurate detection of the macular edema (ME) presence constitutes a crucial ophthalmological issue as it provides useful information for the identification, diagnosis and treatment of different relevant ocular and Systemic diseaseS. serous Retinal Detachment (sRD) is a particular type of ME, which is characterized by the leakage of fluid that has a propensity of being accumulated in the macular region. This paper proposes a new methodology for the automatic identification and characterization of the sRD edema using Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imageS. The subretinal fluids and the External Limiting Membrane (ELM) retinal layers are identified and characterized to measure the disease severity. Four different visualization modules were designed including representative derived parameters to facilitate the doctor's work in the diagnostic evaluation of ME. The different steps of this method were validated using the manual labelling provided by an expert clinician. The validation of the proposed method offered satisfactory results, constituting a suitable scenario with intuitive visual representations that also include different relevant biomarkerS. © 2018 The Author(s).