An Overview of Recent Application of Medical Infrared Thermography in Sports Medicine in Austria <s> Reliability Study <s> During the perioperative period, evaluation of digital blood flow would be useful in early detection of decreased circulating volume, thermoregulatory responses or anaphylactoid reactions, and assessment of the effects of vasoactive agents. This study was designed to assess the reliability of fingertip temperature, core-fingertip temperature gradients and fingertip-forearm temperature gradients as indices of fingertip blood flow in the clinical setting of the operating theatre. In 22 adult patients undergoing abdominal surgery with general anaesthesia, fingertip skin-surface temperature, forearm skin-surface temperature, and nasopharyngeal temperature were measured every five minutes during the surgery. Fingertip skin-surface blood flow was simultaneously estimated using laser Doppler flowmetry. These measurements were made in the same upper limb with an IV catheter (+IV group, n = 11) or without an IV catheter (-IV group, n=11). Fingertip blood flow, transformed to a logarithmic scale, significantly correlated with any of the three thermal measures in both the groups. Their rank order as an index of fingertip blood flow in the -IV group was forearm-fingertip temperature gradient (r=-0.86) > fingertip temperature (r=0.83) > nasopharyngeal-fingertip temperature gradient (r=-0.82), while that in the +IV group was nasopharyngeal-fingertip temperature gradient (r=-0.77) > fingertip temperature (r=0.71) > forearm-fingertip temperature gradient (r=-0.66). The relation of fingertip blood flow to each thermal measure in the -IV group was stronger (P<0.05) than that in the +IV group. In the clinical setting of the operating theatre, using the upper limb without IV catheters, fingertip skin-surface temperature, nasopharyngeal-fingertip temperature gradients, and forearm-fingertip temperature gradients are almost equally reliable measures of fingertip skin-surface blood flow. <s> BIB001 </s> An Overview of Recent Application of Medical Infrared Thermography in Sports Medicine in Austria <s> Reliability Study <s> Abstract Selfe J, Hardaker N, Thewlis D, Karki A. An accurate and reliable method of thermal data analysis in thermal imaging of the anterior knee for use in cryotherapy research. Objective To develop an anatomic marker system (AMS) as an accurate, reliable method of thermal imaging data analysis, for use in cryotherapy research. Design Investigation of the accuracy of new thermal imaging technique. Setting Hospital orthopedic outpatient department in England. Participants Consecutive sample of 9 patients referred to anterior knee pain clinic. Interventions Not applicable. Main Outcome Measures Thermally inert markers were placed at specific anatomic locations, defining an area over the anterior knee of patients with anterior knee pain. A baseline thermal image was taken. Patients underwent a 3-minute thermal washout of the affected knee. Thermal images were collected at a rate of 1 image per minute for a 20-minute re-warming period. A Matlab (version 7.0) program was written to digitize the marker positions and subsequently calculate the mean of the area over the anterior knee. Virtual markers were then defined as 15% distal from the proximal marker, 30% proximal from the distal markers, 15% lateral from the medial marker, and 15% medial from the lateral marker. The virtual markers formed an ellipse, which defined an area representative of the patella shape. Within the ellipse, the mean value of the full pixels determined the mean temperature of this region. Ten raters were recruited to use the program and interrater reliability was investigated. Results The intraclass correlation coefficient produced coefficients within acceptable bounds, ranging from .82 to .97, indicating adequate interrater reliability. Conclusions The AMS provides an accurate, reliable method for thermal imaging data analysis and is a reliable tool with which to advance cryotherapy research. <s> BIB002 </s> An Overview of Recent Application of Medical Infrared Thermography in Sports Medicine in Austria <s> Reliability Study <s> The aim of this study was to investigate the reproducibility of skin surface infrared thermography (IRT) measurements and determine the factors influencing the variability of the measured values. While IRT has been widely utilized in different clinical conditions, there are few available data on the values of the skin temperature patterns of healthy subjects and their reproducibility. We recorded the whole body skin temperatures of sixteen healthy young men with two observers on two consecutive days. The results were compared using intra-class correlations analyses (ICC). The inter-examiner reproducibility of the IRT measurements was high: mean ICC 0.88 (0.73-0.99). The day-to-day stability of thermal patterns varied depending on the measured area: it was high in the core and poor in distal areas. The reproducibility of the side-to-side temperature differences (deltaT) was moderately good between the two observers (mean ICC 0.68) but it was reduced with time, especially in the extremities, mean ICC 0.4 (-0.01-0.83). The results suggest that the IRT technique may represent an objective quantifiable indicator of autonomic disturbances although there are considerable temporal variations in the measured values which are due to both technical factors such as equipment accuracy, measurement environment and technique, and physiological variability of the blood flow, and these factors should be taken into account. <s> BIB003
Reliable measurements have a substantial impact on the diagnosis and interpretation of pathophysiological abnormalities. Many investigations about reliability have focused on equipment and errors related to the physical principles of the technique  BIB001 . In addition to technical variations, biological changes such as the circadian rhythm may also contribute noise to the measurements  . The reproducibility of the thermal pattern is important if MIT is to be used as a screening tool for injuries. Selfe et al. BIB002 conducted a study of inter-rater reliability and determined that MIT generated adequately reliable thermal patterns from the anterior knee. The amount of heat emitted from the knee is a complex phenomenon that is influenced by many factors and comparing images over time requires good standardization methods and quality assurance BIB003 . We conducted a preliminary study to evaluate the day-to-day repeatability  . To guarantee reliable measurements, a standardized setup was used as shown in Figure 3 . 