Abstract
Abstract Thermographic imaging is a known technology to detect temperature differences. For medical applications, the patterns of heat distribution are used for diagnosis. It is already tested to visualize blood supply, inflammatory processes, and superficial or more extensive tumors, e.g. in the breast tissue. This method was promoted for breast screening purposes and as a substitute for mammography for mid aged women, but the results were not convincing for younger women, where tissue density is higher, tumor growth is often connected to local temperature increase and radiation-based mammography is not an option. Infrared (IR) thermography can support tumor screening. The screening should allow the early detection of small lesions even in the depth. Therefor we evaluated the feasibility of dynamic cooling in combination with IR imaging in a phantom study. A temperature-controllable gel phantom including a heating plate, a depth-adjustable heat source mimicking a tumor, and three sensors for temperature monitoring was built up. A raspberry pi device serves as a control unit to create a stable temperature balance comparable to a human breast. For the experiments, the tumor was placed in various depth. After cooling, the thermal recovery phase of the phantom was imaged using an IR camera and a webcam. A pixel-wise analysis of the IR data detects a higher gradient of temperature change in the tumor region. The experiments demonstrated the feasibility of tumor detection based on dynamic cooling and IR imaging.
Highlights
Breast cancer is a leading cause of death among women
Dynamic thermography has been investigated over the recent decades for detection of breast cancer as it eliminates the drawbacks mentioned above
In the conventional thermography diagnosis, the patient is imaged after undressing and again after waiting in a cold environment, which is uncomfortable for the patient and not repeatable
Summary
Breast cancer is a leading cause of death among women. Early detection of breast cancer is the key to improve the survival rate by 95% [1]. Among different available screening methods, mammogram remains the gold standard It comes with high false-negative rates [2], the danger of ionizing radiation and is uncomfortable for the patients. It is not an accepted screening method, to detect breast cancer in young women [3], women with radiologically dense breasts or in women with breast implants [4]. In the conventional thermography diagnosis, the patient is imaged after undressing and again after waiting in a cold environment, which is uncomfortable for the patient and not repeatable This method, does not allow detection of small lesions situated in 2-3 cm depth. IR imaging of this recovery phase allows measurement of the dynamics in temperature change This can be used for detection of hot spots. The phantom is mimicking the breast with a depth adjustable tumor to investigate the feasibility of infrared (IR) imaging after applying dynamic cooling
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