A Comparison of the Tortuosity Phenomenon in Retinal Arteries and Veins Using Digital Image Processing and Statistical Methods

Sufian A. Badawi (), Maen Takruri, Djamel Guessoum, Isam Elbadawi, Ameera Albadawi, Ajay Nileshwar and Emad Mosalam
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Sufian A. Badawi: Center of Information, Communication and Networking Education and Innovation (ICONET), American University of Ras Al Khaimah, Ras Al Khaimah 72603, United Arab Emirates
Maen Takruri: Center of Information, Communication and Networking Education and Innovation (ICONET), American University of Ras Al Khaimah, Ras Al Khaimah 72603, United Arab Emirates
Djamel Guessoum: Electrical Engineering Department, Ecole de Technologie Superieure, Montreal, QC H3C 1K3, Canada
Isam Elbadawi: Industrial Engineering Department, College of Engineering, University of Ha’il, Ha’il 81481, Saudi Arabia
Ameera Albadawi: Department of Computer Science, College of Computing and Informatics, University of Sharjah, Sharjah P.O. Box 27272, United Arab Emirates
Ajay Nileshwar: Department of Ophthalmology, RAK Medical, and Health Sciences University, Ras Al Khaimah 72603, United Arab Emirates
Emad Mosalam: Dr. Emad Musalam Eyes Clinic, Ras Al Khaimah P.O. Box 5450, United Arab Emirates

Mathematics, 2023, vol. 11, issue 18, 1-23

Abstract: The tortuosity of retinal blood vessels is an important phenomenon, and it can act as a biomarker in the diagnosis of several eye diseases. The study of abnormalities in the tortuosity of retinal arteries and veins provides ophthalmologists with important information for disease diagnosis. Our study aims to compare the tortuosity relation between retinal arteries and veins by quantifying the vessels’ tortuosity in the retina using 14 tortuosity measures applied to the AV-classification retinal dataset. Two feature sets are created, one for arteries and the other for veins. The comparison between the tortuosity of arteries and veins is based on a two-sample T -test statistical method, a regression analysis between the quantified tortuosity features, principal component analysis at the dataset level, and the introduction of the arteriovenous length ratios concept to compare the variations in these new ratios to see the tortuosity behavior in each image. The methods’ results have shown that the tortuosity of retinal arteries and veins is similar. The result of the two-sample T -test supports the research hypothesis, as the P -value obtained was greater than 0.05. Furthermore, the regression analysis between arteries and veins features showed a high correlation ( r 2 = 89.39% and 89.11%) for arteries and veins, respectively. The study concludes that the retinal vessel type has no statistical significance in the tortuosity calculation results.

Keywords: retinal images; retinal blood vessels; skeletonization; tortuosity; inflection count metric; six sigma; linear regression analysis; two-sample T -test; principal component analysis; arteriovenous length ratio (AVLR) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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