Retinal artery and venular caliber grading: a semi-automated evaluation tool

Retinal imaging can facilitate the measurement and quantification of subtle variations and abnormalities in retinal vasculature. Retinal vascular imaging may thus offer potential as a noninvasive research tool to probe the role and pathophysiology of the microvasculature, and as a cardiovascular risk prediction tool. In order to perform this, an accurate method must be provided that is statistically sound and repeatable. This paper presents the methodology of such a system that assists physicians in measuring vessel caliber (i.e., diameters or width) from digitized fundus photographs. The system involves texture and edge information to measure and quantify vessel caliber. The graphical user interfaces are developed to allow retinal image graders to select individual vessel area that automatically returns the vessel calibers for noisy images. The accuracy of the method is validated using the measured caliber from graders and an existing method. The system provides very high accuracy vessel caliber measurement which is also reproducible with high consistency.