Thermographic study of the diabetic foot of patients with diabetes mellitus and healthy patients

This paper presents a comparison of radiometric measurements in people feet with no pathological history and patients with diabetes mellitus. The readings were made with a thermographic camera prototype developed in the laboratory. Also, healthy feet readings were taken with an industrial thermographic camera and an infrared (IR) thermometer for the comparison of data between the prototype and calibrated equipment. The data were compared to correct the prototype characteristic equation for predict and approximated human skin temperature and search for a thermographic description of the diabetic foot. The difference in infrared energy emitted by the feet is not known. But by the interpretation of the temperature, it was known that the average of the difference between the feet of people with diabetes mellitus and without diabetes is of 4.27 °C for the right foot and 3.39 °C in the left foot. This information was collected with the equipment developed in the laboratory and interpreted with a characteristic equation with 98% correlation. The purpose of this project lies in the development of a first front instrument to be applied to clinics.