Thermal vision in medicine, nondestructive testing in industry, and investigation of natural resources and ecology

The scientific and practical conference on “Thermal Vision in Medicine, Industry, and Ecology” was held on October 17 and 18, 2012 in St. Petersburg at the S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute Scientific Production Corp. (GOI), as Section 4 of the International Conference “Applied Optics–2012,” which was part of the International Optical Congress “Optics of the Twenty-First Century,” which ran from October 15 to 19, 2012 in St. Petersburg.
On the initiative of GOI, seventeen scientific–practical conferences on thermal vision and its application in medicine, industry, and ecology have been held in Russia since 1971.
The reports presented at these conferences were of great interest and have been systematically published in Opticheskiı˘ Zhurnal, appearing in Russia and the USA, as well as in the inter-industry collection of scientific papers Teplovidenie (Moscow Institute of Radio Engineering, Electronics, and Automation [MIRÉA]), and the journals Defektoskopiya, Électronnaya Promishlennost’, etc.
The successful application of thermal vision in clinical practice is also confirmed by the fact that 412 working thermal-vision diagnostic offices were operating in the Soviet Union at the end of the 1990s in 350 cities of the country, and by the fact that early thermal-vision diagnosis had been approved by the Ministry of Health of the USSR.
All this became possible thanks to the combined work of the scientists, engineers, and physicians in this country’s leading scientific centers, clinics, design offices, and industrial enterprises.
Thermal vision had already undergone development at GOI in the first post-war years on the initiative of the eminent optician and electrophysicist V. G. Vafiadi. The research and development started by him were continued and developed by M. M. Miroshnikov in the “Thermal vision and iconics” laboratory, created at GOI in 1961.
Along with military thermal viewers and devices for industry, ecology, and the study of natural resources, he and his colleagues (R. N. Ivanova, E. N. Mineev, G. M. Ovcharenko, E. Ya. Karizhenskiı˘, N. F. Soboleva, K. S. Karapetyan, and others), in collaboration with the Geofizika Central Design Office (V. A. Khrustalev, V. L. Denisman, Yu. V. Krylov and others) and the Azov Optomechanical Factory (Chief Device Designer G. A. Padalko), developed and put into experimental and series production the Filin, Rubin, and Yantar’ medical thermal viewers and the Raduga digital color thermal viewer. Their introduction of treatment centers into operation was accompanied by the activity of research and practicing physicians of the Institute of Nutrition of the Academy of Medical Sciences (M. A. Sobakin), the Scientific Research Institute of Oncology (N. P. Napalkov, M. L. Gershanovich, V. B. Kondrat’ev, and others), the Scientific Research Institute of First Aid of the Ministry of Health (G. D. Shushkov, V. P. Mel’nikova, V. F. Sukharev, and others) and especially the Leningrad Municipal Clinical Thermal-Vision Center, directed by Professor V. P. Mel’nikova (since 1974, the leading research fellow of GOI).
Under the direction of Academician N. D. Devyatkov, his colleagues A. G. Zhukov, A. N. Goryunov and others developed the BTV family of thermal viewers at NPO Istok (Fryazino). The latest models of these devices (the BTV-3 and BTV-4) use digital signal processing and are controlled from a personal computer (an IBM PC), which significantly expands their capabilities. The BTV thermal viewers were put into commercial production by the Experimental Design Office of the Agat Factory (Kstovo, Nizhniı˘ Novgorod Oblast). Development of a medical technique and certification of these devices was carried out at the Nizhniı˘ Novgorod Scientific Research Institute of Orthopedics and Traumatology under the direction of Dr. Med. Sci. Professor S. N. Kolesov.
A family of thermal-field analyzers—the ATP thermal viewers, including the first Soviet-produced thermal viewers ATP-44M (1976), with digital memory and control from an IBM PC—was developed at MIRÉA (Rector, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences N. N. Evtikhiev), under the direction of Professor N. D. Kurtev and in collaboration with the Academy of Medical Sciences (AMN) of the USSR. Digital signal processing and the use of the computer has significantly expanded the possibilities of the ATP thermal viewers (television image standard, color image, thermal profiles with the absolute temperature, etc.). The ATP thermal viewers were put into commercial production by the experimental factory of the Central Design Bureau of the AMN.
A technique and apparatus were developed at the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics (IRÉ) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, under the direction of Academician Yu. V. Gulyaev, for early medical diagnosis, based on the measurement of the radiations that appear around the human organism, using the IRTIC-2000 scanning thermal viewers, commercially produced at OOO IRTIS (Moscow). In particular, important results were obtained there in the mid 80s in the area of dynamic thermal vision (É. É. Godik), in which information is extracted from a time sequence of thermograms. A series of thermal images is processed by an IBM PC AT personal computer, and this makes it possible to study the reactions of the organism to variation of the external conditions, including changes that accompany functional tests. This is a further substantial development of research at the beginning of the 1960s at GOI and the Institute of Nutrition of the AMN on the dynamics of gastric digestion.
Unfortunately, the development of thermal-vision diagnosis in Russia has been virtually at a standstill for the last 20–25 years, not only because of the general political and economic circumstances, but also because of the myth that has existed in that period concerning the large number of false-positive responses inherent to thermal vision when diagnosing oncological illnesses.
Worldwide interest in thermal vision and the demand for thermal-vision diagnostic apparatus is steadily increasing. In particular, this is because, unlike diagnostic radiation methods (x-ray, mammography, ultrasound, magnetic resonance, laser and UV irradiation), thermal vision makes it possible to diagnose complex illnesses not on the basis of an analysis of tissue structure but by revealing the functional features of the organism. The myth of the large number of false-positive results supposedly inherent to thermal vision has been completely dispelled, since the false-positive results have turned out to be very early diagnostic results not accessible to other methods. However, unfortunately, the creative forces existing today and still maintained at GOI, at the Nizhniı˘ Novgorod Scientific Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics (Professor S. N. Kolesov’s Center of Medical Thermal and Radio Vision), the IRÉ of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Academician Yu. V. Gulyaev), and individual creative groups of thermal-vision enthusiasts in various cities of Russia (St. Petersburg, Moscow, Arkhangel’sk, Novosibirsk, Fryazino, etc.) are still quite inadequate, while no state programs exist for developing this important supplementary method of diagnosis.
Modern health maintenance includes not only medical prophylactic and treatment branches, but also the industrial economics of scientific instrumentation, which must unconditionally involve updating not only of physicians and engineers, but also businessmen. This is shown, in particular, by the reports presented at the present conference, in which, along with scientific and medical-engineering aspects, questions of the organization and commercialization of thermal-vision research are being actively discussed. This mainly relates to the report by a group of scientists (V. Ya. Belen’kiı˘, I. S. Kudryashov, and V. V. Stupak) in the Siberian Sections of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The scientific advisors of the Seventeenth Conference on “Thermal Vision in Medicine, Industry, and Ecology” were Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Professor M. M. Miroshnikov (GOI), and Dr. Med. Sci. Professor S. N. Kolesov (Nizhniı˘ Novgorod Scientific Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics), Scientific Secretary N. F. Soboleva (GOI). The co-chairmen of the sessions were as follows: Professor S. N. Kolesov, V. V. Korotaev (Dr. Tech. Sci., Professor, Dean of Faculty, and Head of the Department of NIU ITMO), V. A. Popov (Dr. Med. Sci., Professor of the Northern State Medical University, Arkhangel’sk), Yu. I. Soldatov (Cand. Tech. Sci., GOI), and I. D. Stulin (Dr. Med. Sci., Professor of the Moscow State Medico-Stomatological University).
The greatest contribution was made to the organization of the Congress and the Conferences held in conjunction with it by the St. Petersburg National University of Information Technologies, Mechanics, and Optics (NIU ITMO), the D. S. Rozhdestvenskiı˘ Optical Society (OOR), and the Scientific Production Corp. S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute (NPK GOI).
The active work of the chairmen and members of the Program and Organization Committees of the Congress and the conferences had great significance, along with the creative contribution of the chairmen and secretaries of the sessions and all their participants.
This issue of Opticheskiı˘ Zhurnal, with the consent of Editor-in-chief A. S. Tibilov, includes the collected reports presented at the conference on “Thermal vision in Medicine, Industry, and Ecology–2012.” The editors of this issue have preceded the publication of the reports with the “Charter” adopted at the conference.
Specialists from various regions of Russia: Moscow, Moscow Oblast, St. Petersburg, Leningrad Oblast, Nizhniı˘ Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Arkhangel’sk, etc. were present at the sessions of the thermal-vision conference on October 17 and 18, 2012.
Most unfortunately, no staff members of the State Institute of Applied Optics (GIPO, Kazan) systematically participated in the work of the conference on civilian thermal vision—the chief scientific organization on thermal vision in the country, responsible for the metrological assurance of all work on IR engineering.
More than thirty reports and speeches on various aspects of applications of thermal vision in medical diagnosis, nondestructive testing in industry, and studies of natural resources were presented and discussed.
Most of the reports had a high scientific level, and this makes it possible to regard thermal-vision methods of diagnosis and testing as undergoing intensive development of new possibilities. The speakers emphasized questions of the organization of a combination of parameters and the design of thermal viewers with methodological recommendations, directed to intensifying thermal-vision images by druginduced measures and functional tests in medicine, the monitoring of the dynamics of the observed processes, and their nonsteady-state nature.
A wide use of digital signal-processing methods was pointed out, along with the possibilities of modern computers and the maximum use of professional knowledge and the experience of physicians. It was proposed to accomplish any methods of automating the processes of quality improvement and image recognition to simplify as much as possible the work of the thermal-vision-operating physician and to increase the probability that he will draw correct conclusions.
In thermal-vision and multispectral systems intended for the study of natural resources, the main orientation of the developers of the apparatus involves the use of modern fast-response Fourier hyperspectrometers. The number of spectral channels (from UV to IR spectra) has grown extremely fast in these cases, whereas trispectral devices are quite adequate in ordinary medical diagnostic practice. All the developers and operators of medical thermal-viewers pointed out the need to measure the absolute temperatures of the elements of the body surface being investigated.
All this is considered in detail in the reports published here.

CHARTER
Medical Thermography
(Thermal Vision)

The basis of medical thermal vision is the deep connection of the temperature gradients on human skin with processes that occur in the organism. The essence of the thermal-vision method is the presentation to a person (the physician) of a visualized IR image created on the surface of the body by the operation of the vegetative nervous system, caused by variation of the blood accumulation in the subcutaneous vascular network at sites (reflexogenic zones) corresponding to one internal organ or the other. Consequently, it is not the structural features of the internal human organs that are visualized, as is the case in ultrasound, x-ray, and other methods of active radiation diagnosis, but the functional changes, which impart information on any normal and pathological processes in the organism. This is what allows the early diagnosis of complex illnesses in oncology (breast cancer), surgery (illnesses of the arteries and veins, the organs of the abdominal cavity, etc.), and other medical specializations.