Automated Diagnosis of Mitral Valve Diseases Using Echocardiographic Images: A Comparative Study of GLCM Features and Deep Learning Techniques

Abstract

Mitral Valve (MV) pathologies such as Mitral Valve Prolapses (MVP), Mitral Stenosis (MS), and type III regurgitation should be diagnosed as early as possible for the better management of the patients. This research work presents a method for the classification of MV diseases using echocardiographic images and texture analysis of the images using Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) features in conjunction with Machine Learning (ML) classifiers. Initially, a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) was employed to categorize echocardiographic images into two standard views: Apical Four-Chamber (A4C) and Parasternal Long-Axis (PLA). Next, the energy, contrast, correlation, and the entropy of GLCM-based texture features were obtained. The features were then fed into ML classifiers such as Random Forest (RF), Neural Networks (NN), Ensemble models to classify MV conditions. In the A4C view, the Neural Network Classifier (NNC) obtained an accuracy of 85% while in the Parasternal Long Axis (PLA) view, the accuracy was 84%. Some of the features of GLCM that were deemed important in the performance of the model were revealed. The results show that combining GLCM texture analysis with ML provides a potential way of improving the precision and reliability of MV disease diagnosis. The findings of this study contribute to advancements in cardiovascular disease detection by integrating machine learning techniques with echocardiographic analysis, ultimately supporting efforts to enhance public health and early disease diagnosis, in alignment with global healthcare initiatives.