RVPD: An Automated System for Calculating the Tortuosity and Bifurcation Angles of Retinal Vessels to Predict Diseases

Hypertension and diabetes are known to potentially cause morphological changes in the retinal capillary system, yet quantifying these changes presents significant challenges. This research addresses this issue by designing and developing an automated system capable of analyzing retinal images to detect and measure these changes. Our system automatically segments vessels and the optic disc, calculates tortuosity and bifurcation angles, and performs disease prediction based on these measurements along with clinical features. For tortuosity calculation, we adopted a novel curve fitting method, which provides more stable convergence compared to traditional discrete numerical methods. The system integrates clinical data and conducts prediction experiments on hypertensive and diabetic patients with varying sample sizes. Our results demonstrate the system's strong performance and scalability: in the hypertension group, the AUC reached a maximum of 0.814 ± 0.023, with an ACC of 0.735 ± 0.033, while in the diabetes group, the AUC reached a maximum of 0.710 ± 0.043, with an ACC of 0.641 ± 0.052. These findings suggest that our automated system could serve as a valuable tool for early detection and risk assessment of hypertension and diabetes, potentially improving patient outcomes through timely intervention.