Plantar Thermogram Database for the Study of Diabetic Foot Complications

The advances in infrared thermography during recent years have opened new possibilities for its use in medical diagnosis. The detection of complications related to diabetic foot is one of the many uses of this technology. This paper presents a new public plantar thermogram database composed of 334 plantar thermograms from 122 diabetic subjects and 45 non-diabetic subjects. Each thermogram includes four extra images with their respective temperature file, corresponding to the four plantar angiosomes. The database is expected to provide a valuable source to promote research about the potential of infrared thermography for the early diagnosis of diabetic foot problems. The work describes the plantar thermogram acquisition protocol, including the acquisition system and the proper preparation of the subject. It also presents a brief review of the techniques used in previous works for segmentation, registration and correction of feet posture.