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Thyroid cancer is the most common type of neoplasm in the head and neck regions, its incidence rate has grown steadily and it is estimated that it will become the fourth most common type of cancer by 2030. Thermal imaging is a noninvasive and non-contact technique that can detect temperature patterns of the skin, this technique has been used successfully for medical diagnostic purposes in areas such as breast cancer, wound care, vascular diseases, skin cancer and eye diseases. The thyroid is a richly vascularized gland that is located close to the skin, its hyper or hypo activity modifies the temperature pattern of the neck making thermography a good candidate to evaluate possible pathologies by digital infrared thermography. Thyroid nodules are a common pathology which its differentiation from thyroid cancer is becoming an important issue. One of the reasons infrared thermography has not become mainstream in medical diagnosis is that standard interpretation techniques for infrared thermographies do not exist. The objective of the present study is to develop a thermal interpretation procedure, that could eventually become a standard in the detection of thermal anomalies in the neck which could point towards thyroid pathologies.
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