Atlas-based glaucoma score may lead to earlier detection

By capturing more complex deformations within the optic disc region than the cup-to-disc ratio (CDR) measurement, a novel atlas-based score for automatic glaucoma risk stratification may help detect glaucoma before the visual field is affected, according to a study.

The CDR measurement is a clinical indicator used in glaucoma assessment, but as the study authors point out, it only “evaluates the relative sizes of the cup and optic disc (OD) via their diameters and does not characterize local morphological changes that can inform clinicians on early signs of glaucoma.”

By utilizing a novel glaucoma score (atlas glaucoma score) based on a statistical atlas framework that automatically quantifies the deformations of the OD region induced by glaucoma, researchers were able to yield an area under the ROC curve (AUC) higher than CDR measurement on the 3 datasets used for evaluation, including RIM-ONE and ORIGA650 (98.2% vs 91.4%).

Reference
Girard F, Hurtut T, Kavalec C, et al. Atlas-based score for automatic glaucoma risk stratification. Comput Med Imaging Graph. 2020;16;87:101797. DOI: 10.1016/j.compmedimag.2020.101797. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33307282.