What is thermography (diti)?

Clinical Thermography is a simple test of physiology that relies on the sympathetic nerve control of skin blood flow and the ability of the sympathetic nervous system to respond to and react to pain, pathology, injury or dysfunction anywhere in the body.

While other diagnostics such as ultrasound radiography and mammography show the body’s structure or anatomy, DITI (digital infrared thermal imaging) is unique in that it shows physiologic and metabolic processes.

Medical DITI enables the examiner to visualize and quantify changes in skin surface temperature. An infrared scanning device is used to convert infrared radiation emitted from the skin surface into electrical impulses that are visualized in color on a monitor. This visual image graphically maps the body temperature and is referred to as a thermogram. The spectrum of colors indicates an increase or decrease in the amount of infrared radiation being emitted from the body surface. Since there is a high degree of thermal symmetry in the normal body, subtle abnormal temperature asymmetries can be easily identified.

These thermal patterns displayed on the thermogram are as unique as fingerprints. In healthy people there is a symmetrical thermal pattern that is consistent and reproducible for that individual. Injury or disease will result in thermal asymmetries. DITI performed with our Flir camera will record these thermal patterns in a thermograph in precise detail with a temperature sensitivity of 0.01°C.

Medical DITI is a monitor of thermal abnormalities present in a number of diseases and physical injuries. It is used as an aid for diagnosis and prognosis, as well as therapy follow up and rehabilitation monitoring, within clinical fields that include Rheumatology, Neurology, Physiotherapy, Sports Medicine, Oncology, Pediatrics, Orthopedics and many others.

Standard region of interest exams take approximately 15 minutes and a full body scan 30 minutes.