ABSTRACT
This chapter will investigate future trends, and offer a “wish list” of hardware, software, and research developments that can make clinical thermography easier, more standardized, better understood, globally available, and compatible with modern medicine. Future solid-state thermal detectors to replace the delicate and expensive microbolometer, better thermography suite design, and manufacture of portable thermal imaging modules are some possible hardware advances. Software developments such as automatic full-span formatting and thermal contour-line overlays appear on the wish list. Better regulation, education, and certification of thermographers and technicians will improve the practice of human medical thermography. Adapting DICOM medical imaging for thermography will provide a base for standardized thermal images and interpretation. As for future research, a large trial testing whether modern thermography is a more effective primary screening tool than mammography is needed. Studies investigating thermography's usefulness in preventing overtreatment of malignancies and guiding active tumor treatment are possible. Neonatal care can also benefit from thermal monitoring of infants. Lastly, development of artificial intelligence (AI), fractal, and other computer-aided methods for thermal pattern analysis may improve the speed and accuracy of thermographic image interpretation.
