HypIRskin: Thermography-Guided Device for Diagnosis and Characterization of Skin Cancer Lesions

Jan Verstockt, Warre Clarys, Michaël Hillen, Simon Verspeek, Mathias Bonmarin, Filip Thiessen, Lieve Brochez, Gunther Steenackers

Abstract: This paper presents the HypIRskin device, a functional prototype designed for the active thermography-based diagnosis and characterization of skin cancer lesions. The prototype's primary goal is to provide standardized and reproducible results within a clinical environment, thereby enhancing the efficiency of skin cancer diagnostics. The device, tested in a hospital setting, demonstrates rapid and efficient measurements, with a total time of approximately three minutes. Utilizing active infrared thermography, the device employs thermal excitation, specifically cooling the skin lesion, to capture its reheating pattern and rate. This approach takes advantage of heightened metabolic activity and angiogenesis associated with malignant cells, making it effective in characterizing skin cancers. The device integrates an infrared camera and an RGB camera, synchronized to capture simultaneous thermal and visual images of the same skin location during steady state, cooling and reheating. Results from cooling analyses using agar skin phantoms demonstrate the device's ability to provide uniform and reproducible cooling effects. The paper introduces the initial findings from testing the prototype on patients. It shows the captured images and thermal recovery curves of both affected and healthy skin areas. Additionally, it discusses the device's advantages, current research efforts, and future research, emphasizing its importance in dermatological diagnostics.