title: Automated retinal layers segmentation in SD-OCT images using dual-gradient and spatial correlation smoothness constraint.
abstract: Automatic segmentation of retinal layers in spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) images plays a vital role in the quantitative assessment of retinal disease, because it provides detailed information which is hard to process manually. A number of algorithms to automatically segment retinal layers have been developed; however, accurate edge detection is challenging. We developed an automatic algorithm for segmenting retinal layers based on dual-gradient and spatial correlation smoothness constraint. The proposed algorithm utilizes a customized edge flow to produce the edge map and a convolution operator to obtain local gradient map in the axial direction. A valid search region is then defined to identify layer boundaries. Finally, a spatial correlation smoothness constraint is applied to remove anomalous points at the layer boundaries. Our approach was tested on two datasets including 10 cubes from 10 healthy eyes and 15 cubes from 6 patients with age-related macular degeneration. A quantitative evaluation of our method was performed on more than 600 images from cubes obtained in five healthy eyes. Experimental results demonstrated that the proposed method can estimate six layer boundaries accurately. Mean absolute boundary positioning differences and mean absolute thickness differences (mean±SD) were 4.43±3.32 μm and 0.22±0.24 μm, respectively.
authors.affiliation: School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China. Electronic address: sjniu@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Sijie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Niu
authors.affiliation: School of Computer Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing 210094, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: de Sisternes
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Rubin
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Weiwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Qinghuai
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D042262:Retinoscopy / Q000379:methods*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D041623:Tomography, Optical Coherence / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Automatic segmentation; Edge flow; Gradient compensation; Spatial correlation smoothness constraint; Spectral domain optical coherence tomography