engleski

Thermography in patients with inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer: evidence and review of the method

Background and Purpose: There is a need for a simple, noninvasive and reproducible test that could accurately reflect the inflammatory activity and neoplastic lesions, and that could be used safely and repeatedly during the biological course of inflammatory and neoplastic bowel disease. During past few decades, the joint efforts of professionals have resulted in evolution of technological advances in infrared sensor technology, thus developing the new methods that enabled the use of thermal imaging in biomedical research and clinical medicine. The aim of this viewpoint was to present, and comment on, the possibility of thermal imaging in assessing inflammatory disease activity and the existence of neoplastic bowel lesions. Materials and Methods: The authors presented thermal images of several patients (n=6: five patients with inflammatory bowel disease and one female patient with colorectal cancer), and one female healthy individual, describing the tem erature patterns and commenting on the possible thermographic signs of underlying disease. Results: Inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer show a clear change in the thermal pattern of the abdominal surface and a different pattern of histogram temperature distribution. Conclusion: This review has indicated the potential of infrared thermography as a feasible and noninvasivemethod in additional evaluation of patients with various manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease and also of colon cancer.

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD); Crohn’s disease; ulcerative colitis; thermography

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