Temporal Thermometer Reading Normal but Skin Hot
Study Questions Efficacy of Popular Forehead Thermometer
Mar. 23 -- FRIDAY, July 13 (HealthDay News) -- A new study is calling into question a widely used, noninvasive method of taking an individual's temperature, but company officials claim the findings were skewed by improper apply of the product.
Craig Crandall, a research scientist at the Institute for Exercise and Ecology Medicine, Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, and his colleagues used a body arrange filled with hot water to induce rut stress in 16 individuals, 11 of whom were female. They and then measured each field of study'due south temperature using both a temporal thermometer made by Exergen Corp., of Watertown, Mass., and an "ingestible pill telemetry organisation."
A temporal thermometer computes the core body temperature based on forehead temperature, as measured with an infrared scanner. An ingestible pill telemetry organization uses a pill-sized device that is swallowed and transmits, from inside the body, a radio signal that correlates to core body temperature.
Crandall's team found that forehead readings were unreliable indicators of core body temperature. Though the 2 devices reported the same temperature at the start of the experiment, as the subjects' core body temperature (equally measured by the ingestible pill) rose, the temporal thermometer readings really fell. At 50 minutes, for instance, the internally measured temperature had risen about 0.7 degrees C, on average, while the temporal thermometer reported a decrease of about 0.iii degrees C.
The study is published in the July issue of Medicine & Scientific discipline in Sports & Practice.
The temporal thermometer "is no amend" than the tried-and-truthful parental method of feeling a child's brow, ended Crandall. In fact, "putting your paw on the forehead, in my opinion, is improve, because we know the bailiwick is hot, whereas this device actually said a patient was cooling downwards. And then, the hand could actually exist more accurate."
However, Exergen President Dr. Francesco Pompei claims the researchers failed to use the production as intended, and that colored the final results.
"The specific business organisation we had expressed to them two years ago was that they were using the temporal avenue thermometer in a manner for which information technology was not designed and contrary to the manufacturer's instructions ... It was not that they were doing oestrus stress studies, merely that they were conducting them with artificial heating and cooling apparatus, which greatly distorts the thermophysiology of either a patient or an athlete, to the point of little significant as a laboratory model for actual patients or athletes," Pompei said in a statement.
Frederick Mueller, managing director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the Academy of N Carolina, said the written report was "very interesting," simply noted information technology involved a very small number of subjects, and so must be repeated with a larger population. He also suggested the authors might have seen different results if they had measured temperature after practise-induced heating, rather than by artificially raising body temperature with a water suit.
The Exergen temporal thermometer is available in versions for both medical professionals and consumers. Nearly one in three Texas hospitals uses them, as does the medical tent at the Boston Marathon. According to a list provided by Exergen, customers include such institutions every bit Massachusetts Full general Hospital, the Academy of California Medical Center in San Francisco, and New York University Medical Middle.
However, there take been few reports to validate their efficacy, according to the study authors, and those that take been published describe conflicting findings.
The Texas study arose after a temporal thermometer failed to recognize a fever of 40 degrees C in a patient at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, a woman with a astringent but undiagnosed infection, explained study co-author Dr. Benjamin Levine.
"I investigated it in our hospital, and it turned out many of the nurses had the same experience," he said. "In other words, they [the nurses] idea there was a fever, and a temporal measurement said they didn't."
Co-ordinate to Crandall, there are several reasons why forehead temperature is not a reliable indicator of core trunk temperature. For one thing, forehead temperature is based on the temperature of the temporal artery, which lies between the skull and the skin of the brow. Only that artery is not in exactly the same location in every private, nor is information technology found at precisely the aforementioned depth.
More important, at that place are any number of factors that can change skin temperature without affecting internal temperature. During periods of temperature transition, such as when an individual is developing a fever or when a fever "breaks," claret flow to the peel changes, raising or lowering skin temperature relative to the core body temperature.
Sweat, peculiarly, can affect skin temperature, Crandall noted. "Sweating cools the skin even if the internal temperature is high. I can get someone'due south temperature elevated, and if I put water on the face up and use a fan, the skin temperature will be absurd."
For athletes, "this is a serious problem, specially in the summertime, because people get very hot and tin can develop life-threatening hyperthermia if y'all don't measure trunk temperature accurately," Levine added.
The research team wiped sweat off each field of study before taking temperatures, but according to manufacturer instructions for the consumer product, "wiping the brow is not recommended, since the sweating immediately begins once again." Instead, Exergen recommends reading the temperature of a sweating individual behind the ear.
"We proved many years ago that perspiration does not finish by wiping, and the skin never dries, even though the tiny droplets of water immediately forming at the pores may non be visible. Unless the pare is dry out, readings volition always be low. Every bit an educated approximate, this is probably the well-nigh meaning cause of the low [temporal] temperatures reported in the study," Pompei said.
Pompei likewise noted that the use of the temporal thermometry on sweaty athletes such equally those running in the Boston Marathon has been largely investigative to this point.
"Due to the profusely perspiring athletes, we have developed methods of measuring temperatures on such athletes by employing an infrared transparent membrane, which is impermeable to water. When properly used, the flick is either attached to the [temporal] thermometer or placed on the subject's forehead in a manner that stops the evaporation of the perspiration, thus rendering the temperature of the skin over the [temporal thermometer] the same as if information technology were completely dry," he explained. "The impermeable membrane method has non been published nor released for general use with the [temporal] thermometer, since we are yet refining the method."
Mueller noted that using the temporal thermometer with sweaty sports athletes is questionable at this indicate.
"I remember people should be concerned, especially in athletic injury research," he said. "If I was a director of a marathon using that method, I would doublecheck and make certain we're doing the right thing."
Equally a result of internal investigations besides as this study, Levine said, Parkland Hospital has stopped using temporal thermometers.
"If it is really important to measure body temperature," he said, "this device is not the mode to do information technology. If the forehead is hot, and the kid isn't sweating, this device works pretty well. But if you call back your child has a fever, and they are sweating, and the device says the skin temperature is normal, I would not be reassured by that."
More than data
For more than information on hyperthermia, visit the National Plant on Aging.
SOURCES: Craig Crandall, M.D., research scientist, Plant for Exercise and Environmental Medicine, Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, and associate professor, internal medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas; Benjamin Levine, Yard.D., professor, internal medicine-cardiology, Academy of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas; Francesco Pompei, president, Exergen Corp., Watertown, Mass.; Frederick Mueller, director, National Middle for Catastrophic Sports Injury Inquiry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; July 2007, Medicine & Science in Sports & Practice
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=4507929&page=1
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