title: Automated detection of leakage in fluorescein angiography images with application to malarial retinopathy.
abstract: The detection and assessment of leakage in retinal fluorescein angiogram images is important for the management of a wide range of retinal diseases. We have developed a framework that can automatically detect three types of leakage (large focal, punctate focal, and vessel segment leakage) and validated it on images from patients with malarial retinopathy. This framework comprises three steps: vessel segmentation, saliency feature generation and leakage detection. We tested the effectiveness of this framework by applying it to images from 20 patients with large focal leak, 10 patients with punctate focal leak, and 5,846 vessel segments from 10 patients with vessel leakage. The sensitivity in detecting large focal, punctate focal and vessel segment leakage are 95%, 82% and 81%, respectively, when compared to manual annotation by expert human observers. Our framework has the potential to become a powerful new tool for studying malarial retinopathy, and other conditions involving retinal leakage.
authors.affiliation: 1] School of Mechanical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China [2] St Paul's Eye Unit, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Yitian
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Eye and Vision Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom [2] Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme, Blantyre, Malawi.
authors.forename: Ian J C
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: MacCormick
authors.affiliation: Department of Eye and Vision Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: David G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Parry
authors.affiliation: Department of Eye and Vision Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Leach
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Eye and Vision Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom [2] St Paul's Eye Unit, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Nicholas A V
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Beare
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Eye and Vision Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom [2] St Paul's Eye Unit, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Simon P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Harding
authors.affiliation: 1] Department of Eye and Vision Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom [2] St Paul's Eye Unit, Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Yalin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
mesh_terms: D002199:Capillary Permeability; D005451:Fluorescein Angiography; D006801:Humans; D008288:Malaria / Q000150:complications*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012164:Retinal Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology*; D012171:Retinal Vessels / Q000378:metabolism*; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity