JIANG Jiewei,ZHANGYi,XIE He,YANG Jingshi,GONG Jiamin,LI Zhongwen.A deep learning based fine-grained classification algorithm for grading of visual impairment in cataract patients[J].Optoelectronics Letters,2024,(1):48-57
A deep learning based fine-grained classification algorithm for grading of visual impairment in cataract patients
Author NameAffiliation
JIANG Jiewei School of Electronic Engineering, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an 710121, China 
ZHANGYi School of Electronic Engineering, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an 710121, China 
XIE He School of Ophthalmology and Optometry and Eye Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou 325000, China 
YANG Jingshi School of Electronic Engineering, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an 710121, China 
GONG Jiamin School of Electronic Engineering, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an 710121, China 
LI Zhongwen Ningbo Eye Hospital, Wenzhou Medical University, Ningbo 315000, China 
Abstract:
      Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have shown promising potential for the automated screening and grading of cataracts. However, the different types of visual impairment caused by cataracts exhibit similar phenotypes, posing significant challenges for accurately assessing the severity of visual impairment. To address this issue, we propose a dense convolution combined with attention mechanism and multi-level classifier (DAMC_Net) for visual impairment grading. First, the double-attention mechanism is utilized to enable the DAMC_Net to focus on lesions-related regions. Then, a hierarchical multi-level classifier is constructed to enhance the recognition ability in distinguishing the severities of visual impairment, while maintaining a better screening rate for normal samples. In addition, a cost-sensitive method is applied to address the problem of higher false-negative rate caused by the imbalanced dataset. Experimental results demonstrated that the DAMC_Net outperformed ResNet50 and dense convolutional network 121 (DenseNet121) models, with sensitivity improvements of 6.0% and 3.4% on the category of mild visual impairment caused by cataracts (MVICC), and 2.1% and 4.3% on the category of moderate to severe visual impairment caused by cataracts (MSVICC), respectively. The comparable performance on two external test datasets was achieved, further verifying the effectiveness and generalizability of the DAMC_Net.
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