Surgery – Truss – Pad
Patent
1995-08-14
1997-12-23
Casler, Brian L.
Surgery
Truss
Pad
128664, 128665, 128633, A61B 505
Patent
active
056997973
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application claims priority of PCT application PCT/US93/09480 filed Oct. 4, 1993 and Russian application 5,064,982 filed Oct. 5, 1992.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates generally to the field of medicine, and more particularly to methods and apparatus designed to obtain information on physiological processes in living organisms. This information, obtained in a timely and non-invasive fashion, could be used to diagnose a variety of pathological conditions. Because of its non-invasive nature, this invention would be ideal for population screening and preventative medicine.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Functional dynamics of the microcirculation of physiological liquids such as blood, lymph or water in the skin reflects the general functioning of the main distributed physiological systems. These systems include cell metabolism, which reflects the efficiency with which energy is used, and microcirculation, which transports resources to the cell and carries away metabolic by-products. The functional status of these systems is determined by distributed regulatory mechanisms: both humoral, which reflect the state of the entire organism, and local, which reflect the state of the local cell metabolism. Cell metabolism is connected with microcirculation via another important distributed tissue system, that of perfusion. The functional dynamics of cell membrane perfusion is a measure of the interconnection between cell metabolism and microcirculation.
The state of the whole-organism regulatory systems is reflected not only by the tissue functional dynamics at separate points of the living organism, but mainly in the degree and character of the spatial connectivity of these dynamics. To reveal this connectivity, it is necessary to perform continuous investigation of microcirculation functional dynamics and cell metabolism. For instance, at a state of relaxation, the spatial connectivity is minimal, while under stress it is greatly increased. For malignant tissues an increased connectivity is typical as compared with the surrounding normal tissues. The state of the whole-organism's systems and organs is reflected in the spatial organization of the organism's tissue functioning, since these systems evolved to support the tissue's functional status.
Modern methods of living organism physical field recording makes it possible to follow the dynamics of these complicated physiological processes. These fields include firstly those characterizing the dynamic temperature "portrait" of the organism: radio-thermal, acousto-thermal and infrared radiation of the skin as described in Godik, E. E., Guljaev, Yu. V., "The Human Being Through `Eyes of Radiophysics`", Journal of Radio Engineering (Russian) 1991, No. 8, pp. 51-56. Each of the these types of radiation conveys information about processes taking place inside the organism from a different depth, which is determined by the tissue transparency for that particular radiation. Thus, the skin surface emits radiation brightly at the middle infrared (IR) range of 2-20 .mu.m, with the maximum intensity occurring at 8-14 .mu.m. The characteristic probing depth in this case is about 100 .mu.m. The temperature of this layer is modulated by a network of capillary blood flow (microcirculation) in the skin. Therefore the brightness of the IR radiation of the skin surface reflects skin capillary blood flow--one of the main thermo-regulatory mechanisms of living organisms.
Employment of the organism's own IR radiation is expedient, however, only for those investigations where relatively slow processes of the skin are under scrutiny, since the characteristic thermo-projection time from the depth of about 0.5 mm, where the nearest capillary layer is located, to the radiating surface layer (<100 .mu.m) takes up to several seconds.
Deeper probing depth and consequently higher time resolution can be achieved by an active system of investigating blood distribution at the near surface tissues. By employing illumination by radiation as
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Casler Brian L.
Cohen Jerry
Dynamics Imaging, Inc.
Erlich Jacob N.
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