Abstract:
A theoretical study on the quantification of surface thermal response of cancerous human skin using the
frequency modulated thermal wave imaging (FMTWI) technique has been presented in this article. For
the first time, the use of the FMTWI technique for the detection and the differentiation of skin cancer has
been demonstrated in this article. A three dimensional multilayered skin has been considered with the
counter-current blood vessels in individual skin layers along with different stages of cancerous lesions
based on geometrical, thermal and physical parameters available in the literature. Transient surface
thermal responses of melanoma during FMTWI of skin cancer have been obtained by integrating the heat
transfer model for biological tissue along with the flow model for blood vessels. It has been observed
from the numerical results that, flow of blood in the subsurface region leads to a substantial alteration on
the surface thermal response of the human skin. The alteration due to blood flow further causes a reduction
in the performance of the thermal imaging technique during the thermal evaluation of earliest
melanoma stages (small volume) compared to relatively large volume. Based on theoretical study, it has
been predicted that the method is suitable for detection and differentiation of melanoma with comparatively
large volume than the earliest development stages (small volume). The study has also performed
phase based image analysis of the raw thermograms to resolve the different stages of melanoma
volume. The phase images have been found to be clearly individuate the different development stages of
melanoma compared to raw thermograms.
