Does the technique employed for skin temperature assessment alter outcomes? A systematic review

Abstract

Skin temperature is an important physiological measure that can reflect the presence of illness and injury as well as provide insight into the localised interactions between the body and the environment. The aim of this systematic review was to analyse the agreement between conductive and infrared means of assessing skin temperature which are commonly employed in in clinical, occupational, sports medicine, public health and research settings.Full-text eligibility was determined independently by two reviewers. Studies meeting the following criteria were included in the review: (1) the literature was written in English, (2) participants were human (in vivo), (3) skin surface temperature was assessed at the same site, (4) with at least two commercially available devices employed-one conductive and one infrared-and (5) had skin temperature data reported in the study.A computerised search of four electronic databases, using a combination of 21 keywords, and citation tracking was performed in January 2015. A total of 8,602 were returned.Methodology quality was assessed by two authors independently, using the Cochrane risk of bias tool.A total of 16 articles (n = 245) met the inclusion criteria.Devices are classified to be in agreement if they met the clinically meaningful recommendations of mean differences within ±0.5 °C and limits of agreement of ±1.0 °C.Twelve of the included studies found mean differences greater than ±0.5 °C between conductive and infrared devices. In the presence of external stimulus (e.g. exercise and/or heat) five studies found exacerbated measurement differences between conductive and infrared devices.This is the first review that has attempted to investigate presence of any systemic bias between infrared and conductive measures by collectively evaluating the current evidence base. There was also a consistently high risk of bias across the studies, in terms of sample size, random sequence generation, allocation concealment, blinding and incomplete outcome data.This systematic review questions the suitability of using infrared cameras in stable, resting, laboratory conditions. Furthermore, both infrared cameras and thermometers in the presence of sweat and environmental heat demonstrate poor agreement when compared to conductive devices. These findings have implications for clinical, occupational, public health, sports science and research fields.

Thermographic imaging in sports and exercise medicine: A Delphi study and consensus statement on the measurement of human skin temperature

“…These applications have considerably growth in the use of IRT in recent years, due in part to improvements in the accuracy, functionality and affordability of camera technology, thus making IRT an emerging method of tsk measurement in sports and exercise medicine (Bach et al, 2015b;Costello et al, 2012b;Fernandes et al, 2014).…”

“…IRT is a rapid emerging technique for the assessment of tsk as it is versatile, non-invasive, wireless, and requires no contact with the individual (Bach et al, 2015b;Fernandes et al, 2014;Formenti et al, 2016).…”

“…Previous reports have demonstrated poor agreement between tsk measurements by IRT and contact devices (e.g. thermistors, thermocouples, iButtons) (Bach et al, 2015a;Bach et al, 2015b;Fernandes et al, 2014). However, there are some inherent limitations related to the methodology of IRT data acquisition that could act as confounding factors, thereby influencing temperatures outcomes (Fernández-Cuevas et al, 2015).…”

Skin Protectants Made of Curable Polymers: Effect of Application on Local Skin Temperature

“…For skin temperature measurements, the proposed clinically significant mean skin temperature difference is ±0.5°C and the limits of agreements between different measuring methods are ±1.0°C. 4 …”

Innovative algorithm to evaluate the capabilities of visual, near infrared, and infrared technologies for the detection of veins for intravenous cannulation

“…This can be done without the need of any cold or warm compress (cold or warm stimulation). Traditionally, infrared thermometry is used to measure skin temperature [13], however, the application of vein visualisation is still limited in industry and this paper will assess infrared thermography in comparison to near infrared and visual images. It has been argued that the best NIR wavelengths to optimise vein contrast are determined experimentally [14].…”