RESEARCH ARTICLE Noninvasive methods of classification and staging of chronic hepatic diseases V. Antony Asir Daniel 1 | R. Ravi 2 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Francis Xavier Engineering College, Tirunelveli, India 2 Professor, Anna University Recognized Research Centre, Department of Computer science and Engineering, Francis Xavier Engineering College, Tirunelveli, India Correspondence V. Antony Asir Daniel, Assistant Professor, Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Francis Xavier Engineering College, Tirunelveli, India. Email: antonyasirdaniel@gmail.com Abstract A progressive fatal disease causing more threats to human lives is chronic hepatic disease (CHD). In most of the developing countries, the mortality and morbidity rate have increased due to CHD. Invasive and noninvasive methods are used to measure the pathogenicity of the liver. In this study, ultrasono- graphic images, clinical findings, and laboratory findings are used to determine the stages of CHD. The stages of CHD are (a) chronic hepatitis, (b) compensated cirrhosis, and (c) decompensate cirrhosis. The histopathological analysis is adopted by the invasive method to conduct a liver biopsy. Results of liver biopsy have shown some kind of complications such as pain after liver biopsy, pneumo- thorax, bleeding, or puncture of the biliary tree and rarely death due to heavy bleeding. In such situations, noninvasive procedures are used as an alternative for liver biopsy. In this study, Hough-based histogram-oriented gradient features are extracted and classified using combined multi-support vector machine and hidden Markov model classifiers. A large number of feature models containing 42 chronic hepatitis, 49 compensated cirrhosis, and 47 decompensate cirrhosis were selected specifically for the experimental study. The results outperformed using the abovementioned features and have achieved an overall accuracy of about 99% for the normal detector, 91.43% for the chronic hepatitis detector, and 96.72% for the cirrhosis detector. KEYWORDS chronic hepatic disease, chronic viral hepatitis, cirrhosis, hepatology, liver disease, noninvasive, ultrasound transducer 1 | INTRODUCTION The human liver is a wedge-shaped organ weighing about 3 pounds and protected by the ribcage. The liver is made up of hepatic cells (hepatocytes) which vary from millions of basic metabolic cells. 1,2 The main functions of the liver are metabolism and detoxification of the chemicals and drugs, secretion of bile into the intestine to enhance the digestion process, and production of the protein necessary for blood clotting. 3-5 Chronic hepatic disease (CHD) is a fatal disease most often caused due to alcoholism, viral infections, metabolic disorders, therapeutic agents, and altered immunity. CHD can be divided into three stages. Stage 1 chronic hepatitis (chronic inflammation of the liver), stage 2 compensated cirrhosis, and stage 3 decompensate cirrhosis. 6,7 Compen- sated cirrhosis is the degeneration of cells, inflammation, and the fibrous thickening of the tissue caused due to viral hepatitis and alcoholism. The severity of chronic hepatitis leads to compensated cirrhosis, which is asymptomatic Received: 29 March 2019 Revised: 29 August 2019 Accepted: 17 October 2019 DOI: 10.1002/ima.22378 Int J Imaging Syst Technol. 2019;1–9. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ima © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1