title: Retinopathy online challenge: automatic detection of microaneurysms in digital color fundus photographs.
abstract: The detection of microaneurysms in digital color fundus photographs is a critical first step in automated screening for diabetic retinopathy (DR), a common complication of diabetes. To accomplish this detection numerous methods have been published in the past but none of these was compared with each other on the same data. In this work we present the results of the first international microaneurysm detection competition, organized in the context of the Retinopathy Online Challenge (ROC), a multiyear online competition for various aspects of DR detection. For this competition, we compare the results of five different methods, produced by five different teams of researchers on the same set of data. The evaluation was performed in a uniform manner using an algorithm presented in this work. The set of data used for the competition consisted of 50 training images with available reference standard and 50 test images where the reference standard was withheld by the organizers (M. Niemeijer, B. van Ginneken, and M. D. Abràmoff). The results obtained on the test data was submitted through a website after which standardized evaluation software was used to determine the performance of each of the methods. A human expert detected microaneurysms in the test set to allow comparison with the performance of the automatic methods. The overall results show that microaneurysm detection is a challenging task for both the automatic methods as well as the human expert. There is room for improvement as the best performing system does not reach the performance of the human expert. The data associated with the ROC microaneurysm detection competition will remain publicly available and the website will continue accepting submissions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA. meindert@isi.uu.nl
authors.forename: Meindert
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Niemeijer
authors.forename: Bram
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: van Ginneken
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Cree
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mizutani
authors.forename: Gwénolé
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Quellec
authors.forename: Clara I
authors.initials: CI
authors.lastname: Sanchez
authors.forename: Bob
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hornero
authors.forename: Mathieu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lamard
authors.forename: Chisako
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Muramatsu
authors.forename: Xiangqian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Guy
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cazuguel
authors.forename: Jane
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: You
authors.forename: Agustín
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mayo
authors.forename: Qin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hatanaka
authors.forename: Béatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Cochener
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Roux
authors.forename: Fakhri
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Karray
authors.forename: María
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Garcia
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fujita
authors.forename: Michael D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Abramoff
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000783:Aneurysm / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D016208:Databases, Factual; D003941:Diagnostic Techniques, Ophthalmological; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D005654:Fundus Oculi; D006801:Humans; D010781:Photography / Q000379:methods*; D012372:ROC Curve; D012164:Retinal Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012171:Retinal Vessels / Q000473:pathology*