Infrared camera assessment of skin surface temperature – Effect of emissivity

Abstract

Infrared thermoimaging is one of the options for object temperature analysis. Infrared thermoimaging is unique due to the non-contact principle of measurement. So it is often used in medicine and for scientific experimental measurements. The presented work aims to determine whether the measurement results could be influenced by topical treatment of the hand surface by various substances. The authors attempted to determine whether the emissivity can be neglected or not in situations of topical application of substances such as ultrasound gel, ointment, disinfection, etc. The results of experiments showed that the value of surface temperature is more or less distorted by the topically applied substance. Our findings demonstrate the effect of emissivity of applied substances on resulting temperature and showed the necessity to integrate the emissivity into calculation of the final surface temperature. Infrared thermoimaging can be an appropriate method for determining the temperature of organisms, if this is understood as the surface temperature, and the surrounding environment and its temperature is taken into account.

Effect of perspiration on skin temperature measurements by infrared thermography and contact thermometry during aerobic cycling

“…IR images were analyzed using commercial software (Thermacam Researcher Pro 2.10 software, FLIR, Wilsonville, Oregon, USA). All images were processed using an emissivity factor of 0.98 to obtain skin temperatures (32). The mean skin temperature of each ROI was computed from infrared images.…”

“…Bernard et al criticized that traditional clinical studies based on measuring skin temperature with IRT do not mention the emissivity they assumed for the skin (32). Some disinfectants, gels or lotions that are commonly applied on the skin surface for medical or cosmetic treatments could affect its optical properties due to their lower emissivity (32,33).…”

“…Scientific studies determining emissivity of the human skin have mostly agreed on the value of 0.98 (32)(33)(34). Bernard et al criticized that traditional clinical studies based on measuring skin temperature with IRT do not mention the emissivity they assumed for the skin (32).…”

The conditions for thermographic testing of thermal power engineering installations

“…The infrared thermography is widely used in various research areas. This statement is confirmed by references [17][18][19][20][21][22], review papers [23,24] and works related to the assessment of this method [25][26][27]. In particular, the favourable features include as follows (for this method):…”

Assessment technique for acne treatments based on statistical parameters of skin thermal images

“…Although emissivity coefficient of skin may be altered by the applied sunscreen layer, this emissivity change was not taken into account in the study analysis because a small thermal effect is obtained by the thin and applied sunscreen layer, achieving a thermal equilibrium like in the topical-treated skin in Ref. 28. This is based on the small change of emissivity coefficient value of the skin covered by the sunscreen layer.…”