Shoulder Infrared Thermography in Chronic Rotator Cuff Tears - Temperature Assessment and Variation in Affected and Non-Affected Shoulders

Background Chronic Rotator Cuff Tears (RCT) are a common and disabling condition. Local tissue changes may be assessed by Infrared Thermography (IRT). It was hypothesized that IRT might provide useful information for diagnosis of chronic RCT, yielding lower local skin temperatures. Methods Included patients consisted of adults with chronic primary RCT (> 3 months). Demographics and occupation were recorded. An IRT protocol was used, at rest and after exercise, for both affected and contralateral shoulder. Frontal, dorsal and lateral views were used, and Regions of Interest (ROI's) were defined in the topography of the main rotator cuff tendons. Three independent observers assessed temperature, and concordance analysis was performed. Significant temperature variation was defined as 0.5 ℃. Results 52 patients - 16 males and 36 females - were evaluated, mean age 56 ± 1.3 years old. Inter-observers' concordance was greater than 95%. A slight decrease in temperature was verified after the exercise protocol in affected and contra-lateral shoulders, but this was less than 0.5 ℃. Comparing the skin temperature of affected shoulders and contralateral temperatures, no significant differences were revealed, both at rest or after exercise. Conclusion The obtained results demonstrated IRT as highly reproducible. A small decrease in skin temperature after exercise has been related to peripheral vasoconstriction, and this was confirmed in both affected and non-affected shoulders. Nevertheless, it was expected on affected shoulders a lower baseline and after exercise skin temperatures, which was not confirmed, as no significant difference was found between groups. As such, the role of IRT as complimentary mean of diagnosis is yet to be established in RCT.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Infrared thermography and image analysis for biomedical use

Infrared thermography is used for measuring and analyzing physiological functions and pathology related to the body’s thermal homeostasis and temperature. This review provides an overview of the technological advantages of infrared imaging, with the focus on new advances in and opportunities for infrared imaging, as a reliable medical diagnostic tool. The review has four main parts. Firstly, a short history of thermography development in medicine is given. Secondly, an overview on the clinical and biomedical research results and methodological improvements in established applications of infrared thermography is provided. Thirdly, the details of published research and development results and activities of the last 3 years for time and frequency domain analysis of infrared video thermography recordings to study some vital functions of human physiology are discussed. Analysis of infrared video thermography streams resulted in important information on microvascular (arteriolar) function of the skin and of vital organs when exposed during an operation. This new set of parameters of microvascular function enhances the assessment of the cardiovascular system in chronic diseases e.g. in hypertension and diabetes. Infrared thermography provides valuable information when an organ’s suitability for transplantationmust be assessed based on quantifiable parameters of organ function and viability. Fourthly, a brief overview on a separate, exciting area of infrared imaging is provided as well: the development of a touchless polygraph system. It enables the study of the psychophysiological parameters of stress, by the assessment of breathing and pulse wave patterns by noncontact methodology, for lie detection purposes. In conclusion, infrared imaging is a non-invasive, non-radiative, low cost detection tool, and its application area is constantly growing, along with technical improvements and advances

Infrared Thermal Imaging to Detect Inflammatory Intra-Abdominal Pathology in Infants

A thermal imaging method to detect inflammatory intra-abdominal pathology in infants is proposed and evaluated through a clinical trial. Nine surgical infants, mean chronological age 58 days old (range: 21-83 days), mean weight 2.65 kg (range: 2.45-3.15 kg) with abdominal pathologies were included in the analysis. Infrared thermal image processing consisted of selecting the surgical region of interest where the area of abdominal inflammation was most likely to be, and an abdominal reference region on the same infant, with the aid of clustering segmentation. Skewness was found to be the most sensitive variable to significantly differentiate between the surgical region and reference region (p = 0.022). Multilinear regression analysis indicated that the relationship between the temperature difference signified by skewness and the patients' demographic information (age at time of imaging, gestational age at birth, weight at the time of imaging, birthweight, last stool prior to imaging and last oral intake prior to imaging) was not significant. The study indicated that inflammatory regions, such as those found in infants following surgery, would have a significantly different temperature distribution than the surrounding skin. The method differentiated between an inflammatory and non-inflammatory region on the abdomen

Usage of Infrared-Based Technologies in Forensic Sciences

Infrared (IR) radiation comprises a beam located in the electromagnetic radiation family; it arises from the thermal vibrations of radiation that have longer wavelengths than visible light, but shorter wavelengths than microwave radiation. Its wavelength is between 750 nm and 1 mm. The amount of thermal IR radiation emitted by an object is associated with the temperature of the object, the surface area of the object and the spreading of light. IR-based technologies have been demonstrated as a method of evidence identification in forensic sciences in addition to many daily uses

Application of infrared thermography in computer aided diagnosis

The invention of thermography, in the 1950s, posed a formidable problem to the research community: What is the relationship between disease and heat radiation captured with Infrared (IR) cameras? The research community responded with a continuous effort to find this crucial relationship. This effort was aided by advances in processing techniques, improved sensitivity and spatial resolution of thermal sensors. However, despite this progress fundamental issues with this imaging modality still remain. The main problem is that the link between disease and heat radiation is complex and in many cases even non-linear. Furthermore, the change in heat radiation as well as the change in radiation pattern, which indicate disease, is minute. On a technical level, this poses high requirements on image capturing and processing. On a more abstract level, these problems lead to inter-observer variability and on an even more abstract level they lead to a lack of trust in this imaging modality. In this review, we adopt the position that these problems can only be solved through a strict application of scientific principles and objective performance assessment. Computing machinery is inherently objective; this helps us to apply scientific principles in a transparent way and to assess the performance results. As a consequence, we aim to promote thermography based Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems. Another benefit of CAD systems comes from the fact that the diagnostic accuracy is linked to the capability of the computing machinery and, in general, computers become ever more potent. We predict that a pervasive application of computers and networking technology in medicine will help us to overcome the shortcomings of any single imaging modality and this will pave the way for integrated health care systems which maximize the quality of patient care

Passive microwave radiometry in biomedical studies

Passive microwave radiometry (MWR) measures natural emissions in the range 1–10 GHz from proteins, cells, organs and the whole human body. The intensity of intrinsic emission is determined by biochemical and biophysical processes. The nature of this process is still not very well known. Infrared thermography (IRT) can detect emission several microns deep (skin temperature), whereas MWR allows detection of thermal abnormalities down to several centimeters (internal or deep temperature). MWR is noninvasive and inexpensive. It requires neither fluorescent nor radioactive labels, nor ionizing or other radiation. MWR can be used in early drug discovery as well as preclinical and clinical studies

Passive Microwave Radiometry for the Diagnosis of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Lung Complications in Kyrgyzstan

The global spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), could be due to limited access to diagnostic tests and equipment. Currently, most diagnoses use the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and chest computed tomography (CT). However, challenges exist with CT use due to infection control, lack of CT availability in low- and middle-income countries, and low RT-PCR sensitivity. Passive microwave radiometry (MWR), a cheap, non-radioactive, and portable technology, has been used for cancer and other diseases’ diagnoses. Here, we tested MWR use first time for the early diagnosis of pulmonary COVID-19 complications in a cross-sectional controlled trial in order to evaluate MWR use in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and healthy individuals. We measured the skin and internal temperature using 30 points identified on the body, for both lungs. Pneumonia and lung damage were diagnosed by both CT scan and doctors’ diagnoses (pneumonia+/pneumonia−). COVID-19 was determined by RT-PCR (covid+/covid−). The best MWR results were obtained for the pneumonia−/covid− and pneumonia+/covid+ groups. The study suggests that MWR could be used for diagnosing pneumonia in COVID-19 patients. Since MWR is inexpensive, its use will ease the financial burden for both patients and countries. Clinical Trial Number: NCT04568525