Infrared Thermography in Pain Medicine

Since BC 400 when Hippocrates used temperature in a diagnosis by applying mud to a patient's body and speculating that dry areas had disease, temperature has been an important area of interest in medicine. The skin is a very important organ in temperature regulation, and body temperature is controlled by the combined control of the central and autonomic nerve system. Infrared thermography (IRT) detects infrared light emitted by the body to visualize changes in body heat due to abnormalities in the surface blood flow of diseased areas. IRT is not a tool that shows anatomical abnormalities, but is a method that shows physiological changes. It objectively visualizes subjective symptoms, therefore, it is useful in making diagnoses and doing evaluations in the field of pain medicine where a diagnosis is based on subjective complaints of symptoms. The advantages of IRT is that 1 it is non-invasive and painless, 2 it is not harmful to the patient, 3 it is possible to conduct tests in a physiologically natural state, and 4 its testing time is short. The aim of this paper is to introduce the basic mechanism of IRT, significance in interpretation, and clinical utilization.