Thermal skin reference values in healthy late pregnancy

Abstract

a b s t r a c tDigital thermal imaging has been employed in medicine for over 50 years. However, its use has been focused on vascular, musculoskeletal and neurological conditions, while other potential applications, such as obstetrics, have been much less explored.This paper presents a study conducted during 2011 at the Hospital of Braga on a group of healthy pregnant women in the last third of gestation. The analysis focused on characterizing typical pregnant women steady temperature profiles in specific defined regions of interest (ROI), and determining if the thermal symmetry values for late pregnant healthy women are in line with the values for non-pregnant healthy women.A temperature distribution pattern was found in the defined ROI. The obtained thermal symmetry value had a maximum of 0.370.2 1C, and there was no evidence for the influence of age (p40.05) in the observed group. The influence of the BMI requires further investigation since one ROI (P2 right) presented a p¼ 0.059, close to the threshold of statistical evidence in the influence of BMI. The study group presented symmetry values in line with non-pregnant reference values, but the profiles in temperature distribution are different. Assumptions can therefore now be used with higher confidence when assessing abnormalities in specific pathologic states during pregnancy using the defined ROI. This work represents a first contribution towards establishing guidelines for future research in this specific field of study.

Normal range and lateral symmetry in the skin temperature profile of pregnant women

“…The regions with lower mean temperature values are located on the legs. This distribution of temperature values is in agreement with other studies indicating that the temperature of the skin covering the extremities is lower than of the skin covering the head and the torso [19,22,29,24,30].…”

“…Therefore, it is extremely relevant to investigate in more detail the thermal profiles associated with pregnancy. This study is a followup of preliminary work developed with pregnant women during in the late gestational period, on 10 ROIs [24]. The present paper presents an extensive study of body temperatures that explores 31 ROIs in the anterior, posterior and lateral views of human body in 61 pregnant woman within a wide range of gestation.…”

“…Pregnancy represents a period characterized by numerous changes in the body and might be associated with several diseases, such as hypertension or venous insufficiency [24]. Biomedical research aims to continuously improve diagnostic devices and to develop new ones for less invasive monitoring.…”

Thermal imaging of the fetus: An empirical feasibility study

“…Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging (DITI) or thermography was originally developed for industrial and military applications. Since the early 1960s, medical practitioners began to see the potential of thermal imaging for a range of applications, from the detection of breast cancer, to the investigation of vascular, musculoskeletal and neurological conditions [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. One of the main features that DITI medical applications are based on is that the higher the temperature of a part/area, the more radiation is emitted [8].…”

“…Since DITI is both non-contact and totally non-invasive, it is potentially an optimal tool for use in maternal and neonatal care. However, to date applications in pregnant women have been restricted to the identification of temperature profiles in different parts of the body [4,5,14,15] and placental location [10,11].…”