Detection and Analysis of Exudates in Diabetic Retinopathy using SVM Classifier

Diabetic Retinopathy is a major cause of blindness worldwide. It occurs when small blood vessels gets damaged in the retina due to high glucose level. As it progresses the vision of the patient starts deteriorating, leading to diabetic retinopathy. Early diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy can prevent vision loss in patients with long term diabetes. Exudates is the major symptom of diabetic retinopathy. It is the first clinically observable symptom indicating diabetic retinopathy. Detecting retinal diseases in early stage helps the ophthalmologists to apply proper treatments which in turn eliminates the disease or decreases the severity level of the disease. In this proposed method automatic detection of diabetic retinopathy is done by detecting the exudates in the retinal images. Here SVM classifier is used to detect the severity level of the disease, which provides the conclusion about whether the patient is moderately affected or severely affected.