DeepGF: Glaucoma Forecast Using the Sequential Fundus Images

Disease forecast is an effective solution to early treatment and prevention for some irreversible diseases, e.g., glaucoma. Different from existing disease detection methods that predict the current status of a patient, disease forecast aims to predict the future state for early treatment. This paper is a first attempt to address the glaucoma forecast task utilizing the sequential fundus images of a patient. Specifically, we establish a database of sequential fundus images for glaucoma forecast (SIGF), which includes an average of 9 images per eye, corresponding to 3,671 fundus images in total. Besides, a novel deep learning method for glaucoma forecast (DeepGF) is proposed based on our SIGF database, consisting of an attention-polar convolution neural network (AP-CNN) and a variable time interval long short-term memory (VTI-LSTM) network to learn the spatio-temporal transition at different time intervals across sequential medical images of a person. In addition, a novel active convergence (AC) training strategy is proposed to solve the imbalanced sample distribution problem of glaucoma forecast. Finally, the experimental results show the effectiveness of our DeepGF method in glaucoma forecast.