A survey on computer aided diagnosis for ocular diseases

Background: Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD), which can automate the detection process for ocular diseases, has attracted extensive attention from clinicians and researchers alike. It not only alleviates the burden on the clinicians by providing objective opinion with valuable insights, but also offers early detection and easy access for patients. Method: We review ocular CAD methodologies for various data types. For each data type, we investigate the databases and the algorithms to detect different ocular diseases. Their advantages and shortcomings are analyzed and discussed. Result: We have studied three types of data (i.e., clinical, genetic and imaging) that have been commonly used in existing methods for CAD. The recent developments in methods used in CAD of ocular diseases (such as Diabetic Retinopathy, Glaucoma, Age-related Macular Degeneration and Pathological Myopia) are investigated and summarized comprehensively. Conclusion: While CAD for ocular diseases has shown considerable progress over the past years, the clinical importance of fully automatic CAD systems which are able to embed clinical knowledge and integrate heterogeneous data sources still show great potential for future breakthrough.