more positive research
(thanks george)
Infrared Thermal Imaging
Breast Disease: ***NEW***
The Breast Journal, Volume 4, Number 4, 1998, 245-251
Infrared Imaging of the Breast: Initial Reappraisal Using High-Resolution Digital Technology in 100 Successive Cases of Stage I and II Breast Cancer. Department of Oncology, St. Mary's Hospital, Montreal, Quebec; Department of Radiotherapy, London Cancer Center, London, Ontario; and Ville Marie Breast and Oncology Center, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Our initial experience would suggest that, when done concomitantly with clinical exam and mammography, high-resolution digital infrared imaging can provide additional safe, practical, and objective information. Our initial reappraisal would also suggest that infrared imaging, based more on process than structural changes and requiring neither contact, compression, radiation nor venous access, can provide pertinent and practical complementary information to both clinical exam and mammography, our current primary basic detection modalities.
Open Heart Surgery: ***NEW***
Med Eng Phys 1998 Sep;20(6):443-51
Thermographic imaging in the beating heart: a method for
coronary flow estimation based on a heat transfer model.
Gordon N, Rispler S, Sideman S, Shofty R, Beyar R; Heart System Research Center, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technion-IIT, Haifa, Israel.
Intraoperative thermographic imaging in open-chest conditions can provide the surgeon with
important qualitative information regarding coronary flow by utilizing heat transfer analysis following
injection of cold saline into the aortic root. The heat transfer model is based on the assumption that
the epicardial temperature changes are mainly due to convection of heat by the blood flow, which
may, therefore, be estimated by measuring the temperature variations. Hearts of eight dogs were
exposed and imaged by a thermographic camera. Flow in the left arterial descending (LAD)
coronary branch was measured by a transit-time flowmeter. 20 ml of cold saline were injected into
the aortic root (just after the aortic valve) and the epicardial temperature images were recorded at
end-diastole, for 20-30 s. Different flow rates were achieved by 1 min occlusion of the LAD, which affected a reactive hyperemic response. The dynamics of the temperature in the arterial coronary tree was obtained by averaging the temperature over an edge-detected arterial segment for each frame. The heat transfer equation was curve-fitted, and the flow-dependent heat transfer index was correlated with the experimentally determined coronary flow (r = 0.69, p < 0.001). In summary: a method for quantitative estimation of coronary blood flow by thermography and heat transfer analysis was developed and tested in animal experiments. This method can provide important information regarding coronary blood flow during open-chest surgical procedures.
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