A Use of the FLIR T540
Worldwide, 2.500.000 total hip and knee prostheses are implanted annually in patients whose joints have been severely affected by arthritis or trauma.
A major reason for failure of these implants is infection, which is difficult to treat, especially as more strains of bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.
Heating up the joints would eliminate bacteria and yeast, but could this be done in a non-invasive way?
Bart Pijls, MD, PhD, from the Leiden University Medical Center’s (LUMC) Department of Orthopedic Surgery believes the solution could be electromagnetic induction.
He is working in conjunction with the medical center’s Department of Microbiology to study electromagnetic induction, with the help of thermal imaging.
This new applications article describes how the Leiden University Medical Center (Netherlands) is developing a non-invasive technique based on thermal imaging to identify the ideal operating temperature for its unique electromagnetic induction technique to heat up metal prostheses in hip and knee joints to eliminate bacteria and yeasts without causing too much damage to surrounding tissue.
“Now, using the FLIR T540 in combination with ResearchIR software is really making an impact in speeding up the research and collecting data.” Pijls says. “ResearchIR allowed me to measure and analyze the temperatures on different parts of the joint at the same time, and convert this to raw data. Thermal imaging of the heating process has been very helpful to visualize the work I am doing.”
The application article may be downloaded in pdf.format by clicking here –>Thermal Imaging Used in Prostheses Research’