Gary is an engineer who really knows the physics of these cameras, and I would trust his judgment as the manufacturer on this.
Dr William Cockburn, DC, FIACT, FABFE
T he basic idea is, that the field of view is increased with a larger lens. In the old days, some cameras had such poor field of view that you had to do the legs in three sections, the hips and thighs, knees and lower legs. Then of course the feet also had to be scanned separately due to the tremendous drop in temperature as you scan more distal.
Add to this dilemma, the fact that we had to shoot our exams in the 80's and 90's three times within a 45 minute period. This was called a valid medical-legal study, and the purpose was to prove that temperature abnormalities were consistent. Also in the case of legs, you had t shoot them in color and in grayscale high resolution.
SO, if you were doing a scan in the old days with a 25 mm lens or smaller, you would have to shoot a total of 42 images. Today we just shoot 4-8 depending on how much of the leg you can get in at one view, There is the posterior leg, anterior leg, and two stepping gait views, one from the right and one from the left. So you can see, if one had to shoot the legs views in 4 steps each and then in color and black and white, woof, that was a lot of work.
I have not seen any scans from the ICI system that Gary is now selling that have any problem with field of views. Lots of under-trained thermographers still shoot multiple legs views to this day, even though they have cameras that will easily do the entire leg in one view. This is because they are holding on to the dogma they learned 30 years ago, or if they are newbie's such as yourself, learned from someone old school that has not modernized their imaging practices.
You want to be able to scan as much of the leg or arm as you can in one view, but not the entire body. This is where the confusion comes in for some manufacturers, I am going to copy Gary on this email so he sees what I am telling you.
A lot of people have recognized that a full body scan, or even a half body from the rib cage down to the ankles for example, does not give you a good thermogram, and they are correct. The reason however might surprise you:
The optics of the cameras these days, especially ICI, are excellent. However the body cools as it goes from core to periphery, There is an automatic function in these systems that averages the strength of infrared signal of the target, in this case the patient, with the ambient temperature and the internal temperature of the camera.
If you image too much area, meaning for example the lower back, buttocks, thighs and legs in one view, or for that matter, attempt to do head to toe in one view, you are going to produce a thermogram that has a hotter torso than normal and virtually no distal arm, leg, hand or foot. That is why we do segmental views and your temperature range must be lowered as you go more peripheral.
However, you can usually get the entire leg or entire arm in one view quite easily with the proper lens for any given camera, and that is why I prefer the 50 mm.
Gary what say you?
A sample full body exam is attached for both of your review, This exam was done with the MHS system, I do not have any full body scans submitted by an ICI user to date.
Prospero Ano Amigos.
Bill Dr William Cockburn, DC, FIACT, FABFE
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