Interpretation

Interpreting a Thermal Image series

Images and image series can be interpreted a number of ways:

Individually where a single image is examined and information is essentially gained from that image alone.

Contra-laterally where images of similar body parts from the left and right side are compared visually and/or statistically.

Comparatively where images from two chronologically different studies are examined and compared. Comparative study will also involve the above two methods.

Individual Thermal Images can only yield very limited data generally, but can demonstrate certain conditions clearly and reliably. The most applicable conditions are those of vascular inflammation, especially in the limbs.

Although vascular patterns can be seen in breasts, all breast imaging must be both comparative and contra-lateral to be of true clinical utility.

In both of these images, you can see distinct inflammation patterns around the varicose veins. In the top image, the vein was not visible and required specialised medical assessment to find and treat. The bottom image shows a vein that was mostly visible to the surface.

These images show how reliably the body shows inflammation in a thermogram.

Contra-lateral comparison is where one side is compared to the other like the outside left and outside right thigh.

An example of this would be the soles of the feet or in looking at a breast study.

This method is useful for identifying some neurological conditions, complex inflammations and some potential disease sites in specific tissues.
 

In the pair of images to the right, you can see how the left hand is much cooler than the right, indicating a significant nerve irritation.

In the lower images, this lady's left buttock shows irritation on the L5 and S1 nerves, with a similar asymmetry showing in her left foot (indicating irritation in the same nerves).

This is where there are at least two studies (series of images) are taken, with a suitable period of time between the studies; similar images from the two or more studies are then analysed and differences or changes between the images are identified. 

This method is most suited to identifying slow physiological processes like the developing blood supply leading to a tumour, assessing a person's response to a particular treatment regime (like chemotherapy for a breast tumour - right) or just establishing what is normal for a particular person.

Once a stable thermal signature is established, any alteration to the patterns can be seen quickly, and further anatomical investigation prompted. This is basically how Thermal Breast Imaging is performed.

In this series, the same lady was imaged three times, with the top image just before she started chemotherapy for a tumour in the left breast, and then the next two as her chemotherapy treatment progressed.

With this series, her specialist was able to determine that the treatment protocol he had her on was effectively addressing her problem.