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Enhanced Detection of Age-related Macular Degeneration in Low-quality Retinal Images via Noise-Augmented YOLO and Adaptive Attention Mechanisms

Created on 12 Aug 2026

Authors

Bai, X., Kishimoto, K., Sugiyama, O., TAMURA, H.

Abstract

This study aims to improve the detection performance of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in low-quality retinal images. Background: AMD is a leading cause of vision loss among older adults globally, and accurate detection is crucial for clinical management. However, low-quality optical coherence tomography (OCT) images significantly com-promise diagnostic accuracy. Objective: To enhance AMD detection in low-quality images using noise-augmented data augmentation and an improved YOLO deep learning model. Methods: Public datasets from UCSD and Duke University were utilized; the training dataset comprised 24,980 OCT images (high-quality and noise-augmented low-quality), while the testing dataset included 1,000 images (584 AMD, 416 normal). The model is based on the YOLOv8n framework, integrated with Squeeze-and-Excitation blocks (SEblock) and Adaptive Sparse Self-Attention (ASSA), with an addition-al 160*160 detection layer for detecting small lesions. Evaluation metrics included accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and F2-score. Results: The proposed model achieved an accuracy of 99.02%, sensitivity of 98.17%, specificity of 100%, and an F2-score of 98.50% on the Duke dataset. Detection rates were significantly improved compared to traditional methods, particularly in low-quality images, with a detection rate of 89.60%, markedly superior to original YOLOv8n (55.10%) and classical models like ResNet50. Conclusion: The enhanced model, employing noise-augmented training data and improved attention mechanisms, demonstrates excellent AMD detection capabilities in low-quality OCT images, showing broad potential for clinical applications.

Preprint server: bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 12 Aug 2026.

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