Thermography and extracranial cerebrovascular disease. Preliminary report of a new provocative technique.

Abstract

WOOD, 1 in 1964, described the application of the new technique of medical thermography to the study of carotid occlusive disease. He and others 1-4 have reported an 80% to 90% association between a positive thermogram and significant carotid narrowing. The studies so far published were performed largely on patients with symptomatic cerebrovascular disease. The test itself was used in certain instances to select patients for cerebral angiography. These selective factors may well have resulted in establishing a falsely high sensitivity rate for the procedure. Despite these encouraging initial reports, thermography has had limited use thus far as a diagnostic tool in the field of cerebrovascular disease. This is not unexpected when one considers the high cost of equipment, and the fact that there are available other methods of evaluating carotid competency such as ophthalmodynamometry and carotid compression with electroencephalogram monitor. A more valuable role for facial thermography may