2D alpha-shapes to quantify retinal microvasculature morphology and their application to proliferative diabetic retinopathy characterisation in fundus photographs

Abstract

Abstract The use of 2D alpha-shapes (α-shapes) to quantify morphological features of the retinal microvasculature could lead to imaging biomarkers for proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). We tested our approach using the MESSIDOR dataset that consists of colour fundus photographs from 547 healthy individuals, 149 with mild diabetic retinopathy (DR), 239 with moderate DR, 199 pre-PDR and 53 PDR. The skeleton (centrelines) of the automatically segmented retinal vasculature was represented as an α-shape and the proposed parameters, complexity ( $${Op\alpha }_{min}$$ O p α min ), spread (OpA), global shape (VS) and presence of abnormal angiogenesis (Grad α ) were computed. In cross-sectional analysis, individuals with PDR had a lower $${Op\alpha }_{min}$$ O p α min , OpA and Grad α indicating a vasculature that is more complex, less spread (i.e. dense) and the presence of numerous small vessels. The results show that α-shape parameters characterise vascular abnormalities predictive of PDR (AUC 0.73; 95% CI [0.73 0.74]) and have therefore potential to reveal changes in retinal microvascular morphology.