Feasibility test of Dynamic Cooling for detection of small tumors in IR thermographic breast imaging

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.

Process Modelling (BPM) in Healthcare – Breast Cancer Screening

“…However, mammography screening has also some limitations and undesirable effects associated. As for example, it is not effective in detecting lesions in women with radiologically dense breasts, the radiation exposure and the false-negative or falsepositive mammography results [1], [11], [14]. The reported rate of false-negative results in mammography is of at least 10% and false-positive results can lead to anxiety and psychological distress [11].…”

“…Although mammography continues to be the gold standard of the screening methods [14], it has some limitations. Nowadays, research and discussions moved on to the use of digital breast tomosynthesis as routine for screening programs but until now no screening program has changed to routinely use it [3].…”

Remote metastasis detection by video thermometry: A promissing preclinical study

“…On the other hand, the sensitivity of infrared sensors has signi cantly improved from 0.5°C in the 1960s to less than 0.02°C in modern sensors, allowing them to accurately capture the subtle temperature variations of the breast 29 . The dynamic cooling-assisted video image capture monitors the temperature of each pixel over time, thereby increasing speci city 30 , furthermore, with computational resources, arti cial intelligence can be utilized to extract more features from this technology 31 . Although, the use of thermography has been recognized as a potential mechanism for the diagnosis and monitoring of cancers, particularly skin and breast cancers, thermography is linked to portable cameras and industrial software that limits video and processing functionalities dedicated to homeotherms beings, harming its application for diagnostic purposes.…”

Tomographic reconstruction from planar thermal imaging using convolutional neural network

“…Depending on the scientific purposes, they differ in materials, dimensions, and shapes. Researchers willingly use cylindrical models, especially for preliminary studies, due to their noncomplex structure 7 – 9 . Sadeghi et al 7 reported the use of a cylindrical container filled with temperature-controllable gel placed on a heating plate.…”

“…Researchers willingly use cylindrical models, especially for preliminary studies, due to their noncomplex structure 7 – 9 . Sadeghi et al 7 reported the use of a cylindrical container filled with temperature-controllable gel placed on a heating plate. However, the authors presented only practical experiments, while they ignored mathematical modeling.…”