Characterization of spatial ordering of corneal stroma fibrils

The quantitative characterization of the cornea´s ultrastructure is an important component in clinical studies and ophthalmologic research for investigating various corneal pathologies such as Fuch´s dystrophy, bullous keratopathy, and macular corneal dystrophy. The spatial ordering of the stromal fibrils is a good predictor of corneal transparency and light scattering. In this paper this structure is characterized by estimating the probability density function (PDF) associated with some features of the radial distribution function of fibrils seen in electron micrographs of the stroma. A method derived from the support vector data description (SVDD) is used to estimate this PDF. Experiments using electron micrographs of normal and swollen rabbit corneas are used to illustrate the approach.