Non-contact thermal imaging as potential tool for personalized diagnosis and prevention of cellulite

Cellulite, the problem of dimpled appearance of the skin, affects approximately 85% of female population in developed countries and is classified as one of the worst tolerated by women deteriorating their quality of life and self-esteem. There is a lack of early, objective, quantitative and personalized diagnosis of different stages of cellulite, thus making prevention or early therapeutic intervention difficult. We have demonstrated the efficacy of thermal imaging using IR thermography in a group of female volunteers with different stages of cellulite. By analyzing the superficial temperature distribution of the body, it was possible to diagnose the cellulite stage. The thermal images of posterior site of thighs were recorded, and cellulite areas were identified for further quantitative analysis. We used a custom-designed classification scheme for automatic recognition of the different stages of cellulite as per the well-known Nurnberger-Muller diagnosis scheme. It was possible to diagnose the cellulite stages with over 80% accuracy. The accuracy can be further increased to over 97% using a threshold value correction scheme. Our work has shown that IR thermography when coupled with computer-aided imaging analysis and processing can be a very convenient and effective tool to enable personalized diagnosis and preventive medicine to improve the quality of life of women with cellulite problem.