Automated interpretation of fundus fluorescein angiography with multi-retinal vascular lesion segmentation

Purpose: Fundus fluorescein angiography (FFA) is essential for diagnosing and managing retinal vascular diseases, yet its evaluation is time-consuming and subject to inter-observer variability. We aim to develop a deep-learning-based framework for multi-lesion segmentation in FFA images and to evaluate its primary performance on standard 55 ° images. Methods: A dataset of 428 standard 55 ° FFA images and 53 ultra-wide-field (UWF) FFA images was annotated for non-perfusion areas (NPA), microaneurysms (MA), neovascularization (NV) and laser spots. A residual U-Net framework was trained using a data-pooling strategy. The primary analysis was performed on the 55 ° test set, whereas the UWF subset was analyzed only as a preliminary exploratory observation because of its limited sample size. Performance was assessed using Dice score, Intersection over Union (IoU) and recall. Results: < 0.05). Exploratory UWF analysis showed lower overlap-based performance, highlighting the likely impact of domain shift and the need for larger UWF-specific datasets. Conclusion: This study has established a highly consistent and reproducible framework for multi-lesion segmentation in FFA images. The model may help standardize lesion quantification, reduce manual grading burden, and support future development of larger multi-center FFA datasets.

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Publication Details

Journal
Frontiers in Medicine
Published
2026-04-07
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2026.1762735
Primary Topic
Retinal Imaging and Analysis
Type
article
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article

Automated interpretation of fundus fluorescein angiography with multi-retinal vascular lesion segmentation

Shoujin Huang, Yingfeng Zheng, Fan Song, Danli Shi et al.
Frontiers in Medicine
Retinal Imaging and Analysis
article

Automated interpretation of fundus fluorescein angiography with multi-retinal vascular lesion segmentation

Shoujin Huang, Yingfeng Zheng, Fan Song, Danli Shi, Mingguang He, Weiyi Zhang, Xianwen Shang, Ziwei Zhao, Yan Lu
article en

Abstract

Purpose: Fundus fluorescein angiography (FFA) is essential for diagnosing and managing retinal vascular diseases, yet its evaluation is time-consuming and subject to inter-observer variability. We aim to develop a deep-learning-based framework for multi-lesion segmentation in FFA images and to evaluate its primary performance on standard 55 ° images. Methods: A dataset of 428 standard 55 ° FFA images and 53 ultra-wide-field (UWF) FFA images was annotated for non-perfusion areas (NPA), microaneurysms (MA), neovascularization (NV) and laser spots. A residual U-Net framework was trained using a data-pooling strategy. The primary analysis was performed on the 55 ° test set, whereas the UWF subset was analyzed only as a preliminary exploratory observation because of its limited sample size. Performance was assessed using Dice score, Intersection over Union (IoU) and recall. Results: < 0.05). Exploratory UWF analysis showed lower overlap-based performance, highlighting the likely impact of domain shift and the need for larger UWF-specific datasets. Conclusion: This study has established a highly consistent and reproducible framework for multi-lesion segmentation in FFA images. The model may help standardize lesion quantification, reduce manual grading burden, and support future development of larger multi-center FFA datasets.

Frontiers in MedicineVol. 13
Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK), Sun Yat-sen University (CN), Vision Eye Institute (AU), Foshan Second People's Hospital (CN), Shenzhen Technology University (CN)
Openalex Percentile: Top 26%
Retinal Imaging and Analysis
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