Analysis of corneal images for the recognition of nerve structures

Alfredo Ruggeri, Fabio Scarpa, Enrico Grisan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

20 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The recognition of nerve structures in the cornea appears to be an important clinical issue, e.g. to investigate about damages from surgical interventions (LASIK/PRK) or severity of diabetic neuropathy. We addressed the problem of recognizing and tracing corneal nerves in confocal microscopy images. After image luminosity and contrast are normalized, the nerve tracking procedure is run. After nerve segments are recognized, a post-processing procedure removes false recognitions and links sparse segments. A prototype of the algorithm was implemented in the Matlab® language and run on a personal computer. An evaluation was performed on a data set containing 12 images. The percent of tracked nerves (with respect to manual tracing) was on average 87%; the rate of false positive recognitions (with respect to total tracing) was on average 9%. Running times of the prototype were 4-5 minutes per image.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication28th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS'06
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages4739-4742
Number of pages4
ISBN (Print)1424400325, 9781424400324
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Sept 2006
Externally publishedYes
Event28th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS'06 - New York, NY, United States
Duration: 30 Aug 20063 Sept 2006

Publication series

NameAnnual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology - Proceedings
ISSN (Print)0589-1019

Conference

Conference28th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS'06
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityNew York, NY
Period30/08/063/09/06

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