Dr. B. Kedarnath, et. al. International Journal of Engineering Research and Applications www.ijera.com ISSN: 2248-9622, Vol. 10, Issue 5, (Series-I) May 2020, pp. 60-64 www.ijera.com DOI: 10.9790/9622-1005016064 60 | Page Glaucoma Detection Using Fundus Images of the Eye Dr. B. Kedarnath, Mohammad Mohiddin, Md. Shazia Samreen, K. Sai Priya, O. Shiva Kumar Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Guru Nanak Institute of Technology, Ibrahimpatnam, Rangareddy 501506, Telangana, India Abstract: Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of irreversible blindness in people over 40 years old. In Colombia there is a high prevalence of the disease, being worse the fact that there is not enough ophthalmologists for the country’s population. Fundus imaging is the most used screening technique for glaucoma detection for its trade- off between portability, size and costs. In this paper we present a computational tool for automatic glaucoma detection. We report improvements for disc segmentation in comparison with other works on the literature, a novel method to segment the cup by thresholding and a new measure between the size of the cup and the size of the disc. Results were obtained from a set of fundus images in collaboration with the Center of Prevention and Attention of Glaucoma in Bucaramanga, Colombia, where the percentage of success of glaucoma detection was of 88.5%. Keywords: glaucoma detection, disc segmentation, veins seg- mentation, cup segmentation, image processing --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date of Submission: 28-04-2020 Date of Acceptance: 11-05-2020 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. INTRODUCTION Glaucoma is the first cause of irreversal blindness since it affects the eye’s optic nerve. In most of the cases patients do not experience symptoms of vision loss until advanced stages. According to Mohammadi [1] and Jeyaraman [2], it is estimated that in developed countries, at least half of glaucoma patients feel no signals of the disease, which is expected to be worse in developing countries. In a study of glaucoma prevalence from worldwide published data [3], [4] found that by 2020, over 11.1 million people will be bilaterally blind from primary glaucoma. In [3] was also reported the increasing economical cost of treatment of glaucoma in advanced stages. In Colombia, the Ministry of Health and Social Security estimates that there is around 296,000 blind people for several causes, having glaucoma a prevalence of 3.9% in people over 40 years old in Bucaramanga [5]. This gets worse by the fact that in the country, based on the population in 2011, there are 2 opthalmologists for 100,000 patients [6]. The damage in the optic nerve is due to elevated pressure in the eye, which is caused by either overproduction of aqueous humor or by the blockage of the drainage system of this liquid. There is also evidence of the incidence of genetic family background in the appearance of the disease. There are several tests that can be performed in a patient with suspected glaucoma, such as tonometry to measure the eye’s pressure, gonioscopy to see if angle is open or closed, optical coherence tomography (OCT) and funduscopy or fundus imaging to see the retina and the optic nerve as shown in Figure 1. Figure 1. Fundus image and important parts of the eye The retinal fundus image is used to measure the thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) to diagnose glaucoma. It is one of the non invasive techniques most used by ophthalmologists. Its major advantage is that images can be taken easily for either healthy and non healthy retinas [7], it is also portable and not difficult to use for any health professional, specially in screen- ing campaigns among population without access to health care services. The thickness of the RNFL is calculated by RESEARCH ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS