Prerequisites of dynamic area telethermometry (DAT)

Use of DAT (Dynamic Area Telethermometry), a highly useful biomedical technique based on infrared imaging presents a set of technical prerequisites that are not critical for static infrared imaging. These include the use of highly sensitive focal plane array (FPA) infrared cameras that allow acquisition of ⩾30 sequential images/sec, the use of infrared detectors sensitive in the >8 μm range (e.g. HgCdTe or Ga/As QWIP) to avoid artifacts due to skin reflectivity, the effective thermostated cooling of the detectors to minimize noise and avoid modulation of sensitivity, and the use of software that facilitates effective extraction of clinically useful data from hundreds of selected subareas on 1024 or more sequential thermal images