Infrared Clinical Thermography: Normal Foot Growth Parameters.

Abstract

Clinical thermography is a relatively novel technique in wide use in different medical fields because of its versatility and ease of application. It inflicts no pain and entails no contact with the pediatric patient, which assuages anxiety and fear in patients when undergoing diagnostic exploration. The use of infrared clinical thermography being suggested herein is to establish normality patterns, which have not been described in the relevant literature. These patterns may be extrapolated to pathologic study by means of future research lines. An observational, cross-sectional study (descriptive in nature) was performed with a sample population of 328 children divided into two age groups: 6 to 7 years and 13 to 16 years, all of them schooled in the province of Cáceres in Spain. The variables analyzed herein were age, sex, and temperature. A thermographic camera was used to study foot temperature. Results show that the temperature varies among the different study areas established for the foot, although they remain constant bilaterally. In addition, the highest temperature was found in the area of the first metatarsal head (29.8°C), and the lowest at the heel (28.8°C). It can be concluded that both feet have the same thermal behavior despite the variation in temperature among the different areas that were established in the foot for the purposes of this study.