Instrument and method for locating and marking a hot spot in a person's body tissue
AssigneeVeino-Med Ltd.
InventorsMoshe Shalom, Shai Ghilai, Alex Weizer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A portable passive instrument (10) and a method for locating and marking at least one area of a person's body tissue, such as a vein, having a local variation in temperature compared with surrounding body tissue. The temperature along at least a line of skin within a region of the body tissue is scanned so as to obtain discrete signals representative of respective temperatures of discrete portions along an unstimulated portion of the at least a line of skin. The resulting signals are analyzed so as to derive a temperature profile in order to determine the at least one area having local temperature variation, which is then marked either optically or by means of a pigment.
Claims23
A portable passive instrument for locating and marking at least one area of a person's body tissue having a local variation in temperature compared with surrounding body tissue, said instrument comprising:
- a temperature scanning unit for scanning along the person's skin within a region of said body tissue so as to obtain signals representative of a temperature profile along an unstimulated portion of the skin,
- a processing unit coupled to said temperature scanning unit for analyzing said signals so as to derive the temperature profile in order to determine said at least one area having local temperature variation, and
- a marking unit for marking said at least one area;
- characterized in that:
- the temperature scanning unit is adapted for scanning along at least a line of skin within the region of said body tissue so as to obtain discrete signals representative of respective temperatures of discrete points along an unstimulated portion of the at least a line of skin,
- the processing unit is further adapted to process the temperature profile by determining first and second derivatives of the temperature profile in order to compensate for a possible influence of multiple veins in close mutual proximity so as to determine a location of each vein within the scanned region of body tissue, and
- the marking unit is adapted to mark at least one vein within the scanned region of body tissue.
A method for locating and marking at least one area of a person's body tissue having a local variation in temperature compared with surrounding body tissue, said method comprising the steps of:
- (a) scanning along the person's skin within a region of said body tissue so as to obtain detector signals representative of a temperature profile along an unstimulated portion of the skin, and
- (b) analyzing said signals so as to derive the temperature profile in order to determine said at least one area having local temperature variation, and
- (c) marking said at least one area, characterized in that:
- i) step (a) is performed along at least a line of skin within the region of said body tissue and step (a) further includes obtaining discrete signals representative of respective temperatures of discrete points along an unstimulated portion of the at least a line of skin,
- ii) step (b) further includes processing the temperature profile by determining first and second derivatives of the temperature profile in order to compensate for a possible influence of multiple veins in close mutual proximity so as to determine a location of each vein within the scanned region of body tissue, and
- iii) step (c) includes marking at least one vein within the scanned region of body tissue.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.