Computer-Aided Diagnosis Software for Hypertensive Risk Determination Through Fundus Image Processing

Abstract

The goal of the software proposed in this paper is to assist ophthalmologists in diagnosis and disease prevention, helping them to determine cardiovascular risk or other diseases where the vessels can be altered, as well as to monitor the pathology progression and response to different treatments. The performance of the tool has been evaluated by means of a double-blind study where its sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility to discriminate between health fundus (without cardiovascular risk) and hypertensive patients has been calculated in contrast to an expert ophthalmologist opinion obtained through a visual inspection of the fundus image. An improvement of almost 20% has been achieved comparing the system results with the clinical visual classification.