A device and method for cancer detection, diagnosis and treatment guidance using active thermal imaging

Abstract

The present invention discloses means and methods for detecting irregularities in the cells throughout a healthy tissue. The method generally relates to cancer detection, diagnosis and treatment, and more specifically pertains to detection, diagnosis and treatment guidance of cancerous or precancerous conditions through the use of thermal imaging technology and analysis.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a U.S. National Phase filing under 35 U.S.C. 371 of International (PCT) Patent Application No. PCT / IL2015 / 050392, filed 13 Apr. 2015, which claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62 / 110,615, filed 2 Feb. 2015, and from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 978,901, filed 13 Apr. 2014, all of which are incorporated by reference in their entirety.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to cancer detection and diagnosis, and more specifically the present invention relates to cancer detection and diagnosis through the use of thermal imaging technology.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Tumor cells are distinct from their surrounding normal tissue by several properties, one of which is a thermo-physical property referred to as thermal diffusivity, which is expected to be different in cancerous cells compared to healthy cells. Thermal diffusivity is the combined property of density,...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0188]It is still an object of the present invention to disclose the aforementioned system, wherein the thermal sensor is adapted to collect thermal data of at least a portion of the tissue over time, while the thermomodulating means is applied, thereby enabling the processor to calculate the heat transfer index in real-time.

Problems solved by technology

This extremely low survival rate of lung cancer is not due to lung tumors being more aggressive than other malignant tumors types, but in fact is due to the lack of early detection.

Therefore breathing difficulties and coughing which usually leads to the diagnosis of the cancer means the tumor is large enough to be noticed and is probably untreatable.

At this stage the cancer is progressive and usually metastatic and a targeted healing therapy cannot be considered, resulting in a five year survival rate which is very low.

These false positives lead to unnecessary biopsies and unnecessary treatment for healthy person.

In addition, oncologists treating the cancer have great difficulty in monitoring the treatment progress, and even cataloging the different stages of the disease.

Treatment methods would then be changed, losing valuable time.

In other cases cancer cells would successfully be destroyed, and turn into necrotic cells, however, traditional scans would not differentiate them from cancer cells.

Moreover, Pap test is expensive and requires 14-30 days of waiting for the cytology testing.

However, the use of passively occurring radiation only renders '902 to be incompetent in detecting minor differences in cell structure, which are already found in the precancerous stage.

However, in the above documents, to Herman, the skin surface is cooled by application of cold fluid to a region of the surface, so that Herman can only identify lesions at or very near the surface.

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