RMHA-Net: Robust Optic Disc and Optic Cup Segmentation Based on Residual Multiscale Feature Extraction With Hybrid Attention Networks

Glaucoma is a chronic eye disease that damages the optic nerve, often leading to permanent vision loss. Early screening with automated technology is crucial to assist ophthalmologists in making accurate diagnoses. One of the key technologies for automated diagnosis is the segmentation of the optic d...

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Main Authors: Mohammad J. M. Zedan, Siti Raihanah Abdani, Jaesung Lee, Mohd Asyraf Zulkifley
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
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Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10824799/
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author Mohammad J. M. Zedan
Siti Raihanah Abdani
Jaesung Lee
Mohd Asyraf Zulkifley
author_facet Mohammad J. M. Zedan
Siti Raihanah Abdani
Jaesung Lee
Mohd Asyraf Zulkifley
author_sort Mohammad J. M. Zedan
collection DOAJ
description Glaucoma is a chronic eye disease that damages the optic nerve, often leading to permanent vision loss. Early screening with automated technology is crucial to assist ophthalmologists in making accurate diagnoses. One of the key technologies for automated diagnosis is the segmentation of the optic disc (OD) and optic cup (OC). In this paper, RMHA-Net is developed using a residual multiscale feature extractor with a hybrid attention mechanism, which is introduced purposely for automated OD and OC segmentation. This network’s encoder is designed based on advanced convolutional neural network (CNN) blocks that combine dilated convolution, which allows field-of-view expansion by capturing larger-scale features. In addition, the encoder also embeds residual connections to improve the model capacity in extracting low-level features. This design accurately separates the OD and OC from surrounding retinal tissues, handling complex environmental and anatomical changes. The proposed network is further improved by integrating two modules to enhance the segmentation performance: 1) a multiscale feature extractor module to provide various scales contextual information, and 2) dual attention mechanisms through channel-wise and spatial-wise mechanisms so that irrelevant information or noise can be excluded by assigning lesser weights to irrelevant features. To validate RMHA-Net’s effectiveness, extensive experiments were conducted using five public datasets: Drishti-GS, ORIGA, PAPILA, Chaksu, and REFUGE, and one private dataset, Ibn Al-Haitham. The proposed model outperformed seven cutting-edge segmentation models for OD and OC segmentation. The results demonstrate that the network extracts detailed features, offering an efficient framework for future studies.
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spelling doaj-art-9ce087d4f75b484e87cffc45b86524b32025-01-15T00:02:38ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-01137715773510.1109/ACCESS.2025.352581310824799RMHA-Net: Robust Optic Disc and Optic Cup Segmentation Based on Residual Multiscale Feature Extraction With Hybrid Attention NetworksMohammad J. M. Zedan0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2893-0731Siti Raihanah Abdani1Jaesung Lee2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3757-3510Mohd Asyraf Zulkifley3https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4010-3990Department of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, MalaysiaSchool of Computing Sciences, College of Computing, Informatics and Mathematics, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, MalaysiaDepartment of Artificial Intelligence, Chung-Ang University, Dongjak, Seoul, Republic of KoreaDepartment of Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor, MalaysiaGlaucoma is a chronic eye disease that damages the optic nerve, often leading to permanent vision loss. Early screening with automated technology is crucial to assist ophthalmologists in making accurate diagnoses. One of the key technologies for automated diagnosis is the segmentation of the optic disc (OD) and optic cup (OC). In this paper, RMHA-Net is developed using a residual multiscale feature extractor with a hybrid attention mechanism, which is introduced purposely for automated OD and OC segmentation. This network’s encoder is designed based on advanced convolutional neural network (CNN) blocks that combine dilated convolution, which allows field-of-view expansion by capturing larger-scale features. In addition, the encoder also embeds residual connections to improve the model capacity in extracting low-level features. This design accurately separates the OD and OC from surrounding retinal tissues, handling complex environmental and anatomical changes. The proposed network is further improved by integrating two modules to enhance the segmentation performance: 1) a multiscale feature extractor module to provide various scales contextual information, and 2) dual attention mechanisms through channel-wise and spatial-wise mechanisms so that irrelevant information or noise can be excluded by assigning lesser weights to irrelevant features. To validate RMHA-Net’s effectiveness, extensive experiments were conducted using five public datasets: Drishti-GS, ORIGA, PAPILA, Chaksu, and REFUGE, and one private dataset, Ibn Al-Haitham. The proposed model outperformed seven cutting-edge segmentation models for OD and OC segmentation. The results demonstrate that the network extracts detailed features, offering an efficient framework for future studies.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10824799/MS attention mechanismglaucoma screeningmulti-scale featuresoptic cup segmentationoptic disc segmentationsemantic segmentation
spellingShingle Mohammad J. M. Zedan
Siti Raihanah Abdani
Jaesung Lee
Mohd Asyraf Zulkifley
RMHA-Net: Robust Optic Disc and Optic Cup Segmentation Based on Residual Multiscale Feature Extraction With Hybrid Attention Networks
IEEE Access
MS attention mechanism
glaucoma screening
multi-scale features
optic cup segmentation
optic disc segmentation
semantic segmentation
title RMHA-Net: Robust Optic Disc and Optic Cup Segmentation Based on Residual Multiscale Feature Extraction With Hybrid Attention Networks
title_full RMHA-Net: Robust Optic Disc and Optic Cup Segmentation Based on Residual Multiscale Feature Extraction With Hybrid Attention Networks
title_fullStr RMHA-Net: Robust Optic Disc and Optic Cup Segmentation Based on Residual Multiscale Feature Extraction With Hybrid Attention Networks
title_full_unstemmed RMHA-Net: Robust Optic Disc and Optic Cup Segmentation Based on Residual Multiscale Feature Extraction With Hybrid Attention Networks
title_short RMHA-Net: Robust Optic Disc and Optic Cup Segmentation Based on Residual Multiscale Feature Extraction With Hybrid Attention Networks
title_sort rmha net robust optic disc and optic cup segmentation based on residual multiscale feature extraction with hybrid attention networks
topic MS attention mechanism
glaucoma screening
multi-scale features
optic cup segmentation
optic disc segmentation
semantic segmentation
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10824799/
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