A clinical microwave thermography system

Microwave thermography is the technique of observing the natural thermal radiation from the tissues of the body at centimetric wavelengths to obtain information about internal body temperature patterns. The ability of the technique to relatively directly obtain a measurement of body internal temperatures is the result of the relative transparency of body tissues to microwave radiation at the lower microwave frequencies. Tissue properties are such that, for many medical applications, the optimum measurement frequency is near 3 GHz at which frequency temperature information can be obtained from clinically useful depths of several centimetres within the body while achieving a spatial resolution of one to two centimetres. With proper design of equipment, microwave temperature-pattern measurements can be made independently of the type of tissue being viewed by the measuring antenna. Equipment has been developed which is suitable for routine clinical use. This equipment is being used for clinical assessments of the technique and has demonstrated that microwave thermography can very simply, and with complete safety, provide medically valuable information about disease activity.