title: An On-Site Thermoelectric Cooling Device for Cryotherapy and Control of Skin Blood Flow.
abstract: Cryotherapy involves the surface application of low temperatures to enhance the healing of soft tissue injuries. Typical devices embody a remote source of chilled water that is pumped through a circulation bladder placed on the treatment site. In contrast, the present device uses thermoelectric refrigeration modules to bring the cooling source directly to the tissue to be treated, thereby achieving significant improvements in control of therapeutic temperature while having a reduced size and weight. A prototype system was applied to test an oscillating cooling and heating protocol for efficacy in regulating skin blood perfusion in the treatment area. Data on 12 human subjects indicate that thermoelectric coolers (TECs) delivered significant and sustainable changes in perfusion for both heating (increase by (±SE) 173.0 ± 66.0%, P < 0.005) and cooling (decrease by (±SE) 57.7 ± 4.2%, P < 0.0005), thus supporting the feasibility of a TEC-based device for cryotherapy with local temperature regulation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 107 West Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78712-1081 e-mail:  nathysmejia@utexas.edu.
authors.forename: Natalia
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mejia
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 107 West Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78712-1081 e-mail:  kdedow@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Karl
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dedow
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 107 West Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78712-1081 e-mail:  lindseynguy@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Lindsey
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Nguy
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 107 West Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78712-1081 e-mail:  Psullivan000@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sullivan
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 107 West Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78712-1081 e-mail:  sepideh@utexas.edu.
authors.forename: Sepideh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Khoshnevis
authors.affiliation: Fellow ASME Department of Biomedical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 107 West Dean Keeton Street, Austin, TX 78712-1081 e-mail:  kdiller@mail.utexas.edu.
authors.forename: Kenneth R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Diller
keywords: cryotherapy; in situ cooling; oscillating cooling and heating; skin blood perfusion; thermoelectric cooling (TEC) module