Assessment of burn injuries using terahertz reflectometry technique

Abstract

A terahertz reflectometry technique is proposed to assess the burn injuries of human skin. In order to differentiate burn injuries of various degrees, a simple stratified media models for the healthy and various degrees of burned skin are presented. The variation of water content is the key measure used in this study to differentiate the burned and normal skin as well as to get the information of the degree of burn. The results obtained from the reflectometry technique show variation among various degree of burns, in addition the detailed study of reflected signals in time domain provide the thickness of the dead dermis which may represent the significant step in clinical surgery.