Study on temperature distribution in carbonized moxa-needle treatment

A lot of heat treatments are conducted in the medical field through the world. It is strongly demanded to develop a noninvasive temperature measuring techniques inside heating target. In order to obtain the temperature change for the deep target noninvasively, it becomes very difficult because of measuring very small charge of electromagnetic wave signals. Recent development of electromagnetic wave measurement technique enables noninvasive temperature measurement inside material using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). In this paper, under carbonized moxa-needle treatment which is one of the methods of acupuncture and moxibustion therapy, the temperature distribution is measured using MRI by measuring the phase of longitudinal relaxation time of proton. The result of temperature analysis during carbonized moxa-needle treatment is also reported.