Diagnosis of Thyroid Disorder using Infrared Thermography

The thyroid disorder has become a major disorder in the recent decades. It plays a major role in the metabolic rates of our body, either it can get lower or higher. The pituitary gland is the centre for the secretion of thyroid hormone. So if any fluctuation occurs in this particular gland the hormone changes can arise and that will result to many sorts of abnormalities in our body. The general procedure used for the detection of thyroid is through invasive blood test. The aim of this study is to compare the existing biomarker with the imaging modality for the early stage diagnosis of thyroid disorder. A total of 63 subjects participated in this study. Various biochemicals, physical and physiological parameters were obtained. Thermal images from head to toe were obtained for all the subjects. Further, the images were processed using MATLAB Tool and ANN classifier. Among the study population, 37 were control and 26 were thyroid affected based on biochemical results. The classifier provided an accuracy of 98.4%, sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 96.3%. Thus, thermography with the help of image processing can be used as screening tool for early diagnosis of thyroid disorder.