Evaluation of severity of HSV-1 corneal infection by statistical pattern classification technique.
OBJECTIVE
Slit lamp photography is a daily practice in ophthalmic examinations in clinic settings. Images of the ocular integrity enable the clinicians to evaluate the progress of disease. However, the lack of a consistent objective measuring scheme to evaluate the corneal epithelial defects is a concern.


METHODS
Rabbits were ocularly infected with HSV-1. Fluorescein solution was applied to the rabbit eyes to reveal lesions. Images were taken via a Nikon digital camera equipped with cobalt blue excitation filter. A modified Bayes classifier (MBC) based on two carefully chosen features was applied to analyze images of infected rabbit corneas.


RESULTS
MBC utilizing a feature set comprising green-to-red ratio and green-to-blue ratio could differentiate infected from normal pixels with an error rate as low as 2.2%.


CONCLUSIONS
The ability of MBC to measure the percentage of corneal surface suffering from infection makes this approach a valuable tool for investigating the dynamics of corneal-related diseases.
Shieh
Yao Y
YY
Department of Radiological Sciences, UC Irvine Medical Center, Orange, California, USA.
Perng
Guey-Chuen
GC
D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D019573:Epithelium, Corneal / Q000821:virology*; D015590:Fluorophotometry; D018259:Herpesvirus 1, Human / Q000502:physiology*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D016849:Keratitis, Herpetic / Q000145:classification* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008297:Male; D010781:Photography; D011817:Rabbits; D012720:Severity of Illness Index