Apprehension of Choroidal Neovascularization using Image Processing

Abstract: "Neovascularization" means "new blood vessels." These new, anomalous blood vessels originate in the choroid, a vessel-containing layer under the retina. When the retinas of people with AMD produce too much vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), new blood vessels sprout from the choroid and then grow into the retina. The new vessels, unlike normal ones, are leaky, and they allow fluid from the blood, and sometimes even red blood cells, to enter the retina. This fluid can immediately distort the vision because it forms a "blister" in the retina, which is normally flat. Over the course of days to months, this fluid can harm the retina, killing the light-sensing cells, called photoreceptors. Objective: Image processing and the related imaging modalities is a very vast progressive upcoming field. Medical imaging is the approach used to acquire images of the body parts for medical uses which would be applicable in identifying or studying diseases. In this paper, we focus on its applications in the field of ophthalmology and retinal imaging where a review of a defect in the eye using image processing and the techniques available in it would help recognize the defective parts.

Keywords: Image Processing, VEGF, Choroid Neovascularization, AMD, CNVM