Affiliations 

  • 1 Biomedical Engineering Department, Al-Khwarizmi College of Engineering, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq
  • 2 College of Pharmacy, Uruk University, Baghdad, Iraq
  • 3 Center for Artificial Intelligence Technology, Faculty of Information Science and Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia
  • 4 Computers, Electronics and Automation Department, Stefan cel Mare University of Suceava, Suceava, Bukovina, Romania
  • 5 Hospital de Olhos-CRO, Guarulhos, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
  • 6 Department of Ophthalmology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN, USA
Transl Vis Sci Technol, 2021 12 01;10(14):16.
PMID: 34913952 DOI: 10.1167/tvst.10.14.16

Abstract

Purpose: To develop and assess the accuracy of a hybrid deep learning construct for detecting keratoconus (KCN) based on corneal topographic maps.

Methods: We collected 3794 corneal images from 542 eyes of 280 subjects and developed seven deep learning models based on anterior and posterior eccentricity, anterior and posterior elevation, anterior and posterior sagittal curvature, and corneal thickness maps to extract deep corneal features. An independent subset with 1050 images collected from 150 eyes of 85 subjects from a separate center was used to validate models. We developed a hybrid deep learning model to detect KCN. We visualized deep features of corneal parameters to assess the quality of learning subjectively and computed area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), confusion matrices, accuracy, and F1 score to evaluate models objectively.

Results: In the development dataset, 204 eyes were normal, 123 eyes were suspected KCN, and 215 eyes had KCN. In the independent validation dataset, 50 eyes were normal, 50 eyes were suspected KCN, and 50 eyes were KCN. Images were annotated by three corneal specialists. The AUC of the models for the two-class and three-class problems based on the development set were 0.99 and 0.93, respectively.

Conclusions: The hybrid deep learning model achieved high accuracy in identifying KCN based on corneal maps and provided a time-efficient framework with low computational complexity.

Translational Relevance: Deep learning can detect KCN from non-invasive corneal images with high accuracy, suggesting potential application in research and clinical practice to identify KCN.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.