Medical Infrared Imaging Today

Medical Infrared Imaging Today

Gary Strahan

Infrared Cameras Inc.

www.infraredcamerasinc.com

Many changes have occurred in the infrared camera manufacturing industry over the past 20 years. As the price of the cameras continue to fall applications continue to grow and expand. It often reminds me of watching a Michael J. Fox “Back to the Future” movie. With cameras being placed in tens of thousands of automobiles it is not hard to imagine a day when they are in every vehicle or on every mode of transportation. Aircraft, trucks, trains, boats, and motorcycles are not excluded.

Just as point radiometers and digital cameras have come down in price so will thermal imaging cameras and today it is happening before our very eyes. Eventually every automobile mechanic, home inspector, HVAC inspector, mechanic, soldier, firefighter, and electrician will own a camera. Some may say “why”. The reason is actually very simple. Thermal imaging cameras allow human beings to see what they cannot see in the visible spectrum with their own eyes. Therefore it gives humans that sixth sense that so many (mostly Hollywood) have often referred. Eventually thermal imaging systems will replace point radiometers used in many process control applications.

Many very bright business executives intimately involved in this technology have known this for some time. It is for this reason those corporations and many others involved in manufacturing infrared cameras, thermal cameras, optics, software, and sensor electronics have gotten on the band wagon.

So, this being the case, why haven’t cameras that have the ability to accurately measure the temperature of human skin and possibly diagnose a disease such as breast cancer, prostate cancer, skin cancer, thyroid problems, pain issues and numerous other medical applications exploded into general practices and hospitals around the country. They have done so in every major manufacturing and even small manufacturing facility in the U.S. and around the world. We use them daily to diagnose temperature on motors, engines, turbines, electrical equipment, etc. So, why not the human body?

In some countries around the world use is growing, but in the United States because of an AMA decision made years ago caused by a few unethical doctors and chiropractors there is no CPT code to legally charge for an examination. Doctors will not typically purchase systems unless they have the ability to have it reimbursed by an insurance company or Medicare or Medicaid. I sincerely believe this technology can save lives. Actually I know it can because it is being done in a hand full of U.S. clinics and hospitals today. I would just like five minutes to plead my case to President Obama and I believe this would change.

Honestly, how can we use a technology to save a $200 electric motor and not use it to help diagnose or save a human life? I am writing and will publish this letter in the hope that someone out there will listen to their own common sense and do something about what I sincerely believe is a tragedy.

Today and I mean literally today we are fielding numerous phone calls and e-mails from airports, states, countries, and local government looking for cameras to identify persons with Swine Flu or the H1N1 virus. This is an outstanding application for radiometric infrared cameras also known as radiometric thermal imaging systems. There are numerous camera manufacturers but there are actually about seven companies world wide that manufacture infrared cameras that are true imaging radiometers. Measuring temperature accurately is no trivial task. Most infrared cameras sold on the market today are simply qualitative cameras.

What I mean is they give you a thermal picture and no actual data. Most U.S. made qualitative imagers available have an NTSC or RCA output. Elsewhere in Europe for example and most of the world PAL is the most common. This simply means you can plug the camera into a standard video camcorder, VCR, clamshell, or DVD recorder and record thermal video. These qualitative cameras will not however give you a temperature measurement. To keep this writing in simple terms in order to measure temperature the system has to have very special electronics, software or firmware and has to go through and elaborate calibration process. Even some of the seven manufacturers do not calibrate the systems in order to insure the very best accuracy.

Measurement accuracy can be very critical, especially when you may make or miss a flight because of it. Back in August of 2008 the U.S. Center for Disease Control issued a contract proposal for various companies to supply quantitative infrared cameras (radiometric thermal imaging systems) to possibly be used for as outbreak which has happened now and during the SARS epidemic in 2002. We bid on this contract as we are one of only a few companies who have U.S. FDA 510 K clearance to sell our cameras so they can be used in a hospital, airport, or doctor’s office.

Oddly enough the CDC which was using the J.H. Stronger Hospital in Chicago said they were not requiring FDA clearance in order to use them to measure the temperature of the human body. I said “why did I have to go through the pain, and it was painful, time, (years) and expense of getting FDA clearance if anyone could sell a camera to our government to measure temperature of the human body"? Needless to say I believe every Infrared Camera manufacturer in the world is getting slammed with requests for radiometric infrared cameras now!

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Best Time in History for Infrared Thermography

Gary Strahan
Infrared Cameras Inc.

There has been no better time in history to start an infrared thermography program than now. Low cost high quality systems are available from numerous manufacturers. Hand held imaging radiometers such as these are replacing commonly used point radiometers by plant personnel. New infrared view ports are emerging daily from various manufacturers that allow compliance with NFPA 70E and make these inspections safer for thermographers. Reliability through lean and six sigma programs have become the competitive edge. To compete on a global scale companies and managers realize down time translates directly to the bottom line. Truly, companies cannot afford not to have a thermal imaging camera and trained personnel to operate them. Whether in house or outside contractors it is a must to compete in today’s environment. Infrared systems have proved to not only save money and time but most importantly save lives. Thermal Imaging has now become the fasted growing form of Non- Destructive testing in the world. This is not a new trendy technology that will phase out in years to come. This technology was introduced in the early seventies and is still growing rapidly and covering markets that were not previously using infrared. This form of preventive maintenance offers a safe reliable way to maintain a safe, confident, and comfortable work environment. In addition to the maintenance savings using thermal imaging it is also known to provide insurance companies accuracy thus providing customers lower rates. I would urge every company to do their research in the Infrared Thermography Field. I believe the results of steady research would provide companies’ with more than adequate information for a return on investment. Now more than ever before this technology is proven to work, affordable, and only a phone call away.

Infrared Cameras and Bridge Inspection

ICI has developed the smallest, most sensitive uncooled camera on the planet. Some say: “Size is everything”, but we say image quality, thermal sensitivity, customer service, and ethics are our #1 goal. In the thermal imaging business size is important, but we strive for smaller and lighter. We know that we have superior image quality and this comes from our incredible thermal sensitivity. We have this capability because of our incredible staff and our business partners.

This sensitivity lends itself to both medical and any non-destructive testing application. This includes inspection of bridge decks and bridge structures. After the fatal collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis our attention as U.S. citizens was focused on this event, but as usual, only for a short time. We tend to forget about events like these: Hurricane Katrina and Rita for example. I bring up Rita because it devastated my home town of Beaumont, Texas. Bridges are critical to our every day lives, but they are costly to repair, maintain, or replace. It is discouraging for our U.S. bridge inspectors to note the same discontinuities year after year and see nothing done about them. It is a shame, but it sometimes takes a catastrophic event to really get our attention.

My wife’s business www.tastefullysimple.com is based in Alexandria, Minnesota. Coming from Texas I never realized people in Minnesota actually doive trucks and cars on their lakes in the winter. They tow their fish houses and set them on the ice. Temperatures can reach -40 F or -40 C which is the only point at which these two temperature scales are the same.

I bring this up because it applies to the topic, I am looking out of my office window at a lake that’s still 90% frozen and its April 29th. What these cold temperatures mean for bridge structures is a huge coefficient for thermal expansion when summer comes around.

AWS D1.1 Structural Bridge code and ASME codes reference -20 C as a critical temperature for brittle fracture for many steels. In Minneapolis and much of the Northern U. S., these temperatures are a yearly reality. In the summer, temperatures rise to over 100 F (38 C). This means the molecular structures are shrinking in the winter and expanding in the summer. It is the molecular vibration of these molecules that cause all materials (everything) above -273 C and -459 F (absolute zero) to emit infrared radiation. Our cameras see this emitted infrared radiation and the better the sensitivity and image quality, the more likely they are to find a potential crack in a concrete or steel bridge structure or a delamination in a concrete bridge deck. We have published a paper that will be in the June issue of the “Concrete Today” magazine. This article describes inspections that companies like “EarthTech” and guys like Tim Crowley do on a regular basis. I believe we need to recognize guys like these and inspectors working for our U.S. Department of Transportation who are behind the scenes making our bridges safer. The following is an excerpt taken from an article from CNN after the Minnesota bridge collapse.

“As of 2003, there were about 160,570 bridges deemed structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. The number represented 27.1 percent of the nation's bridges.

The American Society of Civil Engineers also reported that the number of bridge deficiencies had steadily declined from 34.6 percent in 1992 to 27.1 percent in 2003.

Minnesota Department of Transportation bridge engineer Dan Dorgan said the term "structurally deficient" is a Federal Highway Administration rating.

Inspectors rate sections of the bridge on a 1 to 9 scale, with 9 being in excellent condition, he said.

"A structurally deficient condition is a bridge that would have a rating of 4 either in the deck, the superstructure or the substructure," he said. "Any one of those in condition 4 or less is considered structurally deficient."

But, he noted, out of 13,000 state and local bridges in Minnesota that are 20 feet and more in span, 1,160 of them -- 8 percent of the state's bridges -- are considered structurally deficient.

Tom Everett of the Federal Highway Administration's National Bridge Inspection Program said the structurally deficient rating was a "programatic classification rather than an indication of safety."

"It does not indicate a bridge is dangerous or that that bridge must be replaced," he said”.

For more on this article, see this link: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/08/02/bridge.structure/index.html

Gary Strahan

Infrared Cameras Inc.

Infrared Cameras

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Thermal Cameras in Modern Medicine

Cancer is said to be a dangerous disease; however it is not necessary that all cancer patients die, as with the timely detection and treatment it is possible to survive from cancer. Today medical science has turned to technology to help them detect cancer cells and prevent its spread which is made possible through infrared cameras.

The infrared camera was first designed for use in the military. It is a thermographic camera that uses infrared radiation to create images and has today become the equipment of choice not only for law enforcers, archaeologists and intelligence officers but also by doctors.

Infrared cameras are effective in detecting breast cancer as it can identify the vascular thermal patterns in breasts, the early signs of breast cancer. It is through thermography that vascular conditions called angiogenesis are detected many years before a mammogram can actually detect them.

By using Infrared thermography, the infrared camera measures the different temperatures that occur in different body parts. With this information, the camera creates pictures depicting areas of the body where it depicts abnormal cell growth as abnormal tissues usually emit more heat then normal tissues. This is why unusual cell growth shows up well with an infrared camera.

Infrared cameras are also being tried to map out roots of skin cancer by distinguishing between cancerous and non-cancerous lesions. If successful, this procedure will eliminate the need of expensive physical examinations and tissue biopsies.

Removal of brain tumors is rather difficult as it is possible that doctors may accidentally remove healthy tissues with cancer cells or even leave cancer cells to regrow into tumors. This is why doctors are now trying to find out tumor margins by recognizing temperature changes in surgery as tumor cells emit more heat than healthy ones, with the help of infrared cameras.

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Smallest Thermal Imaging Radiometer

Infrared Camera's Inc. (ICI) has developed the smallest, most sensitive and cost effective thermal imaging radiometer in existence today. The ICI 7320 camera has almost too many applications to list. These cameras can be mounted in your Aircraft, on your Automobile, used to inspect Electrical Systems, Microelectronics, Buildings, Bridges, Homes, Highways, Horses, Animals, Security, Firefighting, and much more.

ICI Infrared Camera's were used recently on the Maury Show to look for Ghosts and Spirits, because of their superior sensitivity. These cameras are becoming the standard for all paranormal investigations.

The size of the camera and its sensitivy are incredible! You can literally see through fog, smoke and view a crisp, clear image at night, for as far as the eye can see. ICI has developed numerous optics for this amazing camera that will make a real difference in the world and help save lives. From using the cameras to find mold and moisture intrusion in homes and buildings to saving Energy and conserving energy these cameras are here to stay. They are and will be an integral part of the future and our every day lives. Check out the amazing video on U-Tube of the breath coming out of one of our engineer’s mouth. These cameras can detect various gasses that are invisible to the human eye. To find out more about these incredible infrared cameras please visit www.infraredcamerasinc.com or call 866-861-0788 toll free.