Automatic measurement of cup to disc ratio based on line profile analysis in retinal images

Retinal image examination is useful for early detection of glaucoma, which is a leading cause of permanent blindness. In order to evaluate the presence of glaucoma, ophthalmologists may determine the cup and disc areas and diagnose glaucoma using a vertical cup-to-disc ratio. However, determination of the cup area based on computation algorithm is very difficult, thus we propose a method to measure the cup-to-disc ratio using a vertical profile on the optic disc. The edge of optic disc was then detected by use of a Canny edge detection filter. The profile was then obtained around the center of the optic disc. Subsequently, the edges of the cup area were determined by classification of the profiles based on zero-crossing method. Lastly, the vertical cup-to-disc ratio was calculated. Using forty five images, including twenty three glaucoma images, the AUC of 0.947 was achieved with this method.