Recent investigations of combined thermal and microwave modelling of body regions for interpretation of microwave thermographic images

It is considered that the physiological heat supply or equivalent perfusion estimated for a tissue region using environmental, oral, microwave and infra-red surface temperature and combined thermal and microwave modelling may provide a clinically useful objective measure of disease activity for the larger joints of the human body. Good agreement has been found between modelled and measured values for the knee and quadriceps regions and it can be concluded that the tissue heat supply is primarily due to arterial blood perfusion. Microwave thermography may be useful in the evaluation of patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis in their wrist and finger joints.