Multi-expert analysis and validation of objective vascular tortuosity measurements.

Abstract The retinal vascular tortuosity is a commonly used parameter for the early diagnosis of several diseases that affects the circulatory system. The manual analysis of fundus images for the tortuosity characterization is a time-consuming and subjective task that presents a high inter-rater variability. Thus, automatic image processing methods allow the efficient computation of objective and stable parameters for the issue. The validation of these methods is crucial to ensure an objective and reliable environment for the retinal experts. This paper describes a multi-expert analysis that measures the clinical performance as well as a validation procedure of the computational tortuosity module of the Sirius framework, a computer-aided diagnosis platform for analyzing retinal images.