Distinctions between Choroidal Neovascularization and Age Macular Degeneration in Ocular Disease Predictions via Multi-Size Kernels ξcho-Weighted Median Patterns

Age-related macular degeneration is a visual disorder caused by abnormalities in a part of the eye’s retina and is a leading source of blindness. The correct detection, precise location, classification, and diagnosis of choroidal neovascularization (CNV) may be challenging if the lesion is small or if Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) images are degraded by projection and motion. This paper aims to develop an automated quantification and classification system for CNV in neovascular age-related macular degeneration using OCT angiography images. OCT angiography is a non-invasive imaging tool that visualizes retinal and choroidal physiological and pathological vascularization. The presented system is based on new retinal layers in the OCT image-specific macular diseases feature extractor, including Multi-Size Kernels ξcho-Weighted Median Patterns (MSKξMP). Computer simulations show that the proposed method: (i) outperforms current state-of-the-art methods, including deep learning techniques; and (ii) achieves an overall accuracy of 99% using ten-fold cross-validation on the Duke University dataset and over 96% on the noisy Noor Eye Hospital dataset. In addition, MSKξMP performs well in binary eye disease classifications and is more accurate than recent works in image texture descriptors.