A comparative study for the development of a thermal odoscope for the wearable dynamic thermography monitoring.
BACKGROUND
The need of the reliable continuous monitoring of temperature is rising in many clinical applications. Today the use of thermography has become central for instance in the analysis of breast cancer, for the survey of inflammatory processes and certain skin areas during physical exercise. The core of the problem is the development of an ad hoc instrument, because traditional methodologies such as infrared and liquid crystals are no longer suitable.


METHODS
We developed a dedicated simulation set-up using Matlab R12 procedures (The Mathworks, USA) and P-spice models (Interlink, USA). We simulated the realisation and use of three different equipment configurations for thermography, one based on PTC sensors, another on thermocouples, a third one on specific integrated silicon components. We also bench tested one prototype.


RESULTS
The results showed the feasibility of the realisation of the instrument and the validity of the data obtained by means of the simulation.
Giansanti
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Dipartimento Tecnologie e Salute, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161 Rome. dgiansa@iss.it
Maccioni
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Gigante
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D003198:Computer Simulation; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D012881:Skin Temperature / Q000502:physiology*; D013817:Thermography / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods