Abstract
Since the introduction of breast thermography into medicine, researchers have been interested in enhancing the thermal contrast in thermograms taken at steady state. It was found that cooling the surface of the skin during long acclimation periods produced better thermal contrast, although it was agreed that acclimation periods of up to 15 min may suffice to reflect functionalities of inner skin tissues. However, the use of artificial sources for cooling the skin has revealed new functional information that complements steady state thermography findings. The method has been referred to as ‘Dynamic thermography ’ and is based on monitoring skin’s thermal state after cold stress. Although dynamic thermography showed some promises in breast cancer diagnosis during the 70s, it has not received much interest till the advent of computer image processing techniques. Analytical tools such as sequential thermography, subtraction thermography, μ-thermography and thermal parametric images have been used in order to increase the accuracy of breast thermography. Other processing techniques used thermal transients of control points on the breasts to examine the change in blood perfusion induced by the presence of a breast disease . Autonomic cold challenge has also been used to identify a tumour’s blood vessels. Recent numerical methods have investigated the effectiveness of dynamic breast thermography and revealed new parameters that are strongly correlated with tumour’s depth. Here we review the state of the art in dynamic thermography as it is applied to breast diagnosis and identify some of the potential information that could be provided about breast diseases.
Published Version
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