The Clinical Significance of Infrared Thermography in Patients with Chronic Pelvic Pain

Kim, Dong Woo; Cho, Won Yeol; Kwon, Heon Young

Abstract

PURPOSE: Infrared thermography is a diagnostic procedure that can objectively visualizes the status of muscle, in musculoskeletal disease, as myofascial pain syndrome. Thus, we evaluated the clinical significance of infrared thermography in patients with chronic pelvic pain.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Forty-five patients with chronic pelvic pain were enrolled in this study as patient group, with thirty-three normal persons as the control group. The patients with a urinary tract infection and an organic disease were excluded. Before the thermography was checked, we made all patients mark the subject pain site, and inform of the pain severity, on the visual analogue scale (VAS) sheet. We analyzed hot spots on the thermographic images, pain sites and VAS sheets, and the thermographic changes, before and after a 2% lidocaine injection at the tender point, on the physical examination.
RESULTS
The sensitivity, specificity and the false positive and negative of infrared thermography were 79.5 (M:F=76.5:81.8), 64.1 (M:F=66.7:61.9), 24.2 (M:F=25.0:23.5) and 32.6% (M:F=31.6:30.8), respectively. However there was no clinical significance between the pain severity and the temperature difference of the thermography. The concordance rate of thermographic and symptomatic changes, after the 2% lidocaine injection at the tender point, was 78.9%.
CONCLUSIONS
Infrared thermography can objectively demonstrate the subjective pain, and is a useful method in follow-up, after treatment for chronic pelvic pain with a tender point.