Investigation of severity of diabetic retinopathy by detecting exudates with respect to macula

Diabetic retinopathy is a major issue for diabetic patient and is caused by the changes in blood vessels and abnormalities in macular region. The symptoms of diabetic retinopathy can blur the vision and can cause blindness. This disease can be detected by the sign of haemorrhages, microaneurysms, exudates, and abnormalities in the retina of the human eye. To detect these abnormalities normally, ophthalmologists prefer pupil dilation of chemical solutions which takes time and irritates patients. To overcome these drawbacks, image processing technique is used in diabetic retinopathy. The proposed method is mostly concentrated on the detection of exudates and abnormalities in macular region using JSEG segmentation technique. The first part is concentrated on investigating the presence of exudates which are a class of lipid retinal lesions having variable size and appearance. Initially the blood vessels become leaky and blocked off forming some spots near the macular region. These lead to exudates and its severity levels are identified by the distance between exudates and macular region. The major concern of second part is based on investigating the presence of exudates with respect to the macular region in order to identify the severity level of abnormalities causing blindness.