Assessment of Bandaged Burn Wounds Using Porcine Skin and Millimetric Radiometry

Abstract

This paper describes the experimental setup and measurements of the emissivity of porcine skin samples over the band of 80–100 GHz. Measurements were conducted on samples with and without dressing materials and before and after the application of localized heat treatments. Experimental measurements indicate that the differences in the mean emissivity values between unburned skin and burned damaged skin was up to ~0.28, with an experimental measurement uncertainty of ±0.005. Measured differences in the mean emissivity values between unburned and burn damaged skin increases with the depth of the burn, indicating a possible non-contact technique for assessing the degree of a burn. The mean emissivity of the dressed burned skin was found to be slightly higher than the undressed burned skin, typically ~0.01 to ~0.02 higher. This indicates that the signature of the burn caused by the application of localized heat treatments is observable through dressing materials. These findings reveal that radiometry, as a non-contact method, is capable of distinguishing between normal and burn-damaged skin under dressing materials without their often-painful removal. This indicates the potential of using millimeter wave (MMW) radiometry as a new type of medical diagnostic to monitor burn wounds.

Variation in the electromagnetic signatures of the human skin with physical activity and hydration level of the skin

“…Human skin emissivity and reflectance provide important diagnostic information and they have served as useful diagnostic tools in modern clinical medicine such as monitoring the wound healing under dressing materials [8,9], early detection of skin diseases [10,11], and identifying the mental state of the human [12]. In this paper, the signature of the human skin was measured before and after jogging on a treadmill and under normal and moistened skin conditions i.e.…”

Electrical properties, accuracy, and multi-day performance of gelatine phantoms for electrophysiology

“…Ex vivo porcine skin samples were taken from the back region of a healthy animal having age of eight months and an average weight of 70 kg. This region is free from hair follicles [44] which presents a limitation for both porcine skin and gelatine phantoms. The purchased sample of porcine skin was cut to have a rectangular shape and dimensions (140×60 mm, 10 mm thickness).…”

Synthetic Aperture Radar Imaging for Burn Wounds Diagnostics

“…The relative demerits for this practice are being uncomfortable and painful to the patient (especially for children) [2]. As an alternative to the current medical practice, technologies are emerging to enhance the medical assessment of burn wounds such as terahertz imaging [4][5][6][7], optical coherence tomography [8][9][10][11][12], ultrasound imaging [13][14][15][16], infrared imaging [17][18][19][20], and microwave and millimetre wave (MMW) sensing [2,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27]. The latter is the subject of the research in this paper.…”

“…These measurements [23,[36][37][38] reveal that variations in the human skin emissivity are related to the skin thickness and water content. As burn wounds affect significantly the water content of the skin and the skin thickness; we have investigated the feasibility of using a single channel radiometry (passive sensing) to distinguish between unburned and burned skin in [2,27]. Radiometric measurements obtained from a chicken phantom using a 95 GHz radiometer in [2] indicate that there are well define differences in the mean emissivity values between unburned and burned skin and these differences are observable through dressing materials, indicating the feasibility of using radiometry to detect changes in tissue emissivity under dressing materials.…”

“…Radiometric measurements obtained from a chicken phantom using a 95 GHz radiometer in [2] indicate that there are well define differences in the mean emissivity values between unburned and burned skin and these differences are observable through dressing materials, indicating the feasibility of using radiometry to detect changes in tissue emissivity under dressing materials. Further, Radiometric measurements in [27] indicate that millimeter-wave radiometry generates a clear signature of porcine skin burns and this could be used as a non-contact method to determine the severity of the burns and the degree of the burns. As an active sensing technology has the advantage of higher penetration capability compared with the passive sensing technology; a mono-static radar system in [21] was used for measuring the propagation path length and the thickness of the dressing materials at different states (dry, wet, and with medicinal cream).…”