Open Access

ARTICLE

Computerized Detection of Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency from Digital Cornea Images

by Hanan A. Hosni Mahmoud^*, Doaa S. Khafga, Amal H. Alharbi

Department of Computer Sciences, College of Computer and Information Sciences, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, 11047, KSA

* Corresponding Author: Hanan A. Hosni Mahmoud. Email:

Computer Systems Science and Engineering 2022, 40(2), 805-821. https://doi.org/10.32604/csse.2022.019633

Received 20 April 2021; Accepted 29 May 2021; Issue published 09 September 2021

Abstract

Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency (LSCD) is an eye disease that can cause corneal opacity and vascularization. In its advanced stage it can lead to a degree of visual impairment. It involves the changing in the semispherical shape of the cornea to a drooping shape to downwards direction. LSCD is hard to be diagnosed at early stages. The color and texture of the cornea surface can provide significant information about the cornea affected by LSCD. Parameters such as shape and texture are very crucial to differentiate normal from LSCD cornea. Although several medical approaches exist, most of them requires complicated procedure and medical devices. Therefore, in this paper, we pursued the development of a LSCD detection technique (LDT) utilizing image processing methods. Early diagnosis of LSCD is very crucial for physicians to arrange for effective treatment. In the proposed technique, we developed a method for LSCD detection utilizing frontal eye images. A dataset of 280 eye images of frontal and lateral LSCD and normal patients were used in this research. First, the cornea region of both frontal and lateral images is segmented, and the geometric features are extracted through the automated active contour model and the spline curve. While the texture features are extracted using the feature selection algorithm. The experimental results exhibited that the combined features of the geometric and texture will exhibit accuracy of 95.95%, sensitivity of 97.91% and specificity of 94.05% with the random forest classifier of n = 40. As a result, this research developed a Limbal stem cell deficiency detection system utilizing features’ fusion using image processing techniques for frontal and lateral digital images of the eyes.

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