Deep Learning in Automatic Diabetic Retinopathy Detection and Grading Systems: A Comprehensive Survey and Comparison of Methods

Diabetic Retinopathy is one of the leading global causes of vision impairment and blindness in humans. It has seen a rise in prevalence, necessitating the development of advanced automatic detection methods. This paper presents a survey of the evolution in deep learning techniques for diabetic retinopathy detection, emphasizing the transition from traditional machine learning to sophisticated deep learning architectures such as convolutional neural networks. It discusses the role of transfer learning, end-to-end learning, and hybrid models in overcoming medical detection challenges while highlighting the need for artificial intelligence interpretability and real-time screening integration in clinical workflows. Building on this survey, the paper introduces a focused study on cross-dataset deployment of transfer learning for diabetic retinopathy detection and grading. Consequently, this paper evaluates 26 pre-trained models from various convolutional neural network families to provide a comprehensive comparison between the state-of-the-art CNN architectures in the field. Additionally, this study also employs Grad-CAM visualization to interpret the model’s decision-making, bridging advanced artificial intelligence techniques with practical healthcare applications for diabetic retinopathy.