Lahiri B B, Bagavathiappan S, Jayakumar T, Philip John
Smart Materials and Radiation Techniques Section, Non-Destructive Evaluation Division, Metallurgy and Materials Group, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam 603 102, Tamil Nadu, India.
Infrared Phys Technol. 2012 Jul;55(4):221-235. doi: 10.1016/j.infrared.2012.03.007. Epub 2012 Apr 13.
Abnormal body temperature is a natural indicator of illness. Infrared thermography (IRT) is a fast, passive, non-contact and non-invasive alternative to conventional clinical thermometers for monitoring body temperature. Besides, IRT can also map body surface temperature remotely. Last five decades witnessed a steady increase in the utility of thermal imaging cameras to obtain correlations between the thermal physiology and skin temperature. IRT has been successfully used in diagnosis of breast cancer, diabetes neuropathy and peripheral vascular disorders. It has also been used to detect problems associated with gynecology, kidney transplantation, dermatology, heart, neonatal physiology, fever screening and brain imaging. With the advent of modern infrared cameras, data acquisition and processing techniques, it is now possible to have real time high resolution thermographic images, which is likely to surge further research in this field. The present efforts are focused on automatic analysis of temperature distribution of regions of interest and their statistical analysis for detection of abnormalities. This critical review focuses on advances in the area of medical IRT. The basics of IRT, essential theoretical background, the procedures adopted for various measurements and applications of IRT in various medical fields are discussed in this review. Besides background information is provided for beginners for better understanding of the subject.
体温异常是疾病的自然指标。红外热成像（IRT）是一种快速、被动、非接触且非侵入性的方法，可替代传统临床体温计来监测体温。此外，IRT还能远程绘制体表温度图。在过去的五十年里，热成像相机在获取热生理学与皮肤温度之间相关性方面的应用稳步增加。IRT已成功用于乳腺癌、糖尿病神经病变和外周血管疾病的诊断。它还被用于检测与妇科、肾脏移植、皮肤病学、心脏、新生儿生理学、发热筛查和脑成像相关的问题。随着现代红外相机、数据采集和处理技术的出现，现在有可能获得实时高分辨率热成像图像，这可能会推动该领域的进一步研究。目前的工作重点是对感兴趣区域的温度分布进行自动分析及其统计分析以检测异常情况。这篇批判性综述聚焦于医学IRT领域的进展。本综述讨论了IRT的基础知识、基本理论背景、各种测量所采用的程序以及IRT在各个医学领域的应用。此外，还为初学者提供了背景信息，以便更好地理解该主题。
