Thermovision: a new diagnostic method for orofacial pain?

Abstract

BackgroundInfrared thermography can be used to obtain more complete information about a patient’s condition. The method can be used in various medical applications for monitoring acute and chronic orofacial pain syndrome. With this diagnostic method, thermal differences in the examined region are usually compared to the same reference region on the opposite side of the body.MethodsInfrared quantitative thermography is a non-invasive method for contactless monitoring of dynamic thermal fields on a surface, or in this case, the human body. This method is based on detection of infrared radiation, which is naturally emitted from the surface of the body. In a pilot project with a patient having orofacial pain, changes before and after repetitive transcranial magnetic brain stimulation treatment were assessed.ResultsFirst-day measurements found significantly higher maximum, minimum, and average temperatures, before and after therapy, in the area where the patient subjectively reported pain. The fifth and final measurements, before and after therapy, found only a slight elevation of the maximum temperature of the assessed regions, relative to the same regions on the opposite side of the face.ConclusionDuring the measurements on the fifth day, a thermal difference greater than 0.4°C was only observed relative to the minimum temperatures associated with the regions of self-reported pain before and after therapy. For validation of the effects, this method will need to be tested using a randomized, double-blind study with a larger number of patients.

Stimulation of Myofascial Trigger Points in the Sternocleidomastoid Evokes Facial Thermal Response Correlated with the Referred Pain

“…No significant local temperature changes were found to be associated with a 0 or 1 VAS score. This result agrees with the literature which reports hyperthermal distribution in the presence of referred pain [25].…”

“…The use of thermographic examination in the diagnosis of TMDs have been largely investigated in the literature [26][27][28][29], and several studies focused on myogenous pain [20,25] but only a few studies applied superimposition of ROI images [18,30]. A recent survey also assessed that facial nerve function is one of the possible biomedical applications of infrared thermography [31].…”

Correlation between Blood Flow and Temperature of the Ocular Anterior Segment in Normal Subjects

“…Nosch et al reported that wind stimuli applied to the cornea at almost the same temperature as the cornea resulted in an increased corneal temperature when the stimulation was stronger [ 52 ]. Fricova et al reported that inflammation associated with orofacial pain increased in temperature in the facial region of the reported pain [ 53 ]. The pain sensation was thought to be related closely to blood flow and/or temperature.…”

Diagnosis of Temporomandibular Disorders Using Thermovision Imaging

“…Hyperspectral thermal imaging cameras can be mentioned as a very interesting direction of thermal imaging cameras development. Hyperspectral cameras recording the spectrum in a wide wave range can be used to identify very narrow spectral ranges for individuals, perhaps not only to assess the skin temperature on its surface but also by using appropriate algorithms for analysis and processing of temperature assessment images in 3D of inflamed tissues [21,66,67].…”