Original scientific paper

Thermography hand temperature distribution in rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis

NIKOLA BOROJEVIĆ ; Zabok General Hospital, Bračak 8, 49210 Zabok, Croatia
DARKO KOLARIĆ
SIMEON GRAZIO ; Ruđer Bošković Institute, Bijenička 54, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
FRANE GRUBIŠIĆ ; University Hospital Center »Sestre milosrdnice«, Vinogradska cesta 29, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
SVETLANA ANTONINI ; Health Center Zagreb-Center, Runjaninova 4, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
ISKRA ALEXANDRA NOLA ; »Andrija Štampar« School of Public Health, Rockefellerova 4, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Earliest written medical text from ancient
Egypt mentioned temperature as an indicator of a disease. Although already known, thermal imaging has not been routinely used in medicine. Inflammation of peripheral joints, close to skin surface, is the dominant type of presentation of rheumatoid arthritis and due to that, those joints are suitable for infrared thermal scanning. Considering the changes of the bones in the affected joints, as a control group, apart from healthy subjects, study was conducted on patients with osteoarthritis as well. Purpose of this paper was to investigate thermal images of the hands of patients with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis and analyze temperature distribution.

Materials and Methods: Thermographic images of both hands of healthy subjects, patients with rheumatoid arthritis and patients with osteoarthritis were made. On thermal images obtained, temperature distribution of certain regionswas analyzed. Basic statistical analyses (minimum,maximum, standard deviation, mean, and variance) were performed.

Results: There is a statistically significant difference in finger andmetacarpophalangeal joint mean temperature values on ventral and dorsal sides for both healthy patients and patients with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. Also, there is a statistically significant difference of mean temperature values between the aforementioned patient groups. Temperature distribution
curves of patients with osteoarthritis have been narrower than those
of subjects with rheumatoid arthritis and normal subjects. Temperature distribution curves of patients with rheumatoid arthritis have been shifted towards higher temperatures than those of subjects with osteoartritis and normal subjects.

Conclusion: From the results obtained it was concluded that heat distribution over the skin surface apart from depending on the affected joint and on the intensity of the disease and given drug therapy also differs between the patients with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, making the use of thermography a possible method of differentiating normal subjects and rheumatoid arthritis subjects and osteoarthritis subjects from each other.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

76951

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/76951

Publication date:

15.11.2011.

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