ABSTRACT
Infrared imaging provides quantitative representation of the surface thermal distribution of the human body. The skin temperature distribution of the human body depends on the complex relationships defining the heat exchange processes between skin tissue, inner tissue, local vasculature, and metabolic activity. All of these processes are mediated and regulated by the sympathetic and parasympathetic activity to maintain the thermal homeostasis. The presence of a disease can affect the heat balance or exchange processes, resulting in an increase or in a decrease of the skin temperature and altered dynamics of the local control of the skin temperature. Therefore, the characteristic parameters modeling the activity of the skin thermoregulatory system can be used as diagnostic parameters. The functional infrared (fIR) imaging is the study for diagnostic purposes, based on the modeling of the bio-heat exchange processes, of the functional properties and alterations of the human thermoregulatory system. In this chapter, we present some of the clinical applications in order to show the potentialities of the technique.
Varicocele is a widely spread male disease consisting of a dilatation of the pampiniform venous plexus and of the internal spermatic vein. Consequences of such a dilatation are an increase of the scrotal temperature and a possible impairment of the potential fertility [22,31].
