Combining image and non-image data for automatic detection of retina disease in a telemedicine network

A telemedicine network with retina cameras and automated quality control, physiological feature location, and lesion / anomaly detection is a low-cost way of achieving broad-based screening for diabetic retinopathy (DR) and other eye diseases. In the process of a routine eye-screening examination, other non-image data is often available which may be useful in automated diagnosis of disease. In this work, we report on the results of combining this non-image data with image data, using the protocol and processing steps of a prototype system for automated disease diagnosis of retina examinations from a telemedicine network. The system includes quality assessments, automated physiology detection, and automated lesion detection to create an archive of known cases. Non-image data such as diabetes onset date and hemoglobin A1c (HgA1c) for each patient examination are included as well, and the system is used to create a content-based image retrieval engine capable of automated diagnosis of disease into “normal” and “abnormal” categories. The system achieves a sensitivity and specificity of 91.2% and 71.6% using hold-one-out validation testing.