Martini G, Murray K J, Howell K J, Harper J, Atherton D, Woo P, Zulian F, Black C M
Paediatric Rheumatology Unit, Department of Paediatrics, University of Padova, Italy.
Rheumatology (Oxford). 2002 Oct;41(10):1178-82. doi: 10.1093/rheumatology/41.10.1178.
The aim of this study was to define the clinical utility of infrared thermography in disease activity detection in localized scleroderma (LS).
We retrospectively reviewed 130 thermal images of 40 children with LS and calculated the sensitivity and specificity of thermography, comparing clinical descriptions of the lesions and contemporary thermographs. The reproducibility of thermography was calculated by using the weighted kappa coefficient to determine the level of agreement between two clinicians who reviewed the thermographs independently.
The sensitivity of thermography was 92% and specificity was 68%. Full concordance between the two clinicians was observed in 91% of lesions, with a kappa score of 0.82, implying very high reproducibility of this technique.
Our results demonstrate that thermography is a promising diagnostic tool when associated with clinical examination in discriminating disease activity, as long as it is applied to lesions without severe atrophy of the skin and subcutaneous fat. Further evaluation is needed to determine whether thermography can predict the future progression of lesions.
本研究旨在确定红外热成像技术在局限性硬皮病（LS）疾病活动检测中的临床应用价值。
我们回顾性分析了40例LS患儿的130张热成像图，计算热成像技术的敏感性和特异性，并将病变的临床描述与同期热成像图进行比较。热成像技术的可重复性通过加权kappa系数计算得出，以确定两名独立审阅热成像图的临床医生之间的一致性水平。
热成像技术的敏感性为92%，特异性为68%。两名临床医生对91%的病变观察结果完全一致，kappa评分为0.82，这意味着该技术具有很高的可重复性。
我们的结果表明，只要将热成像技术应用于皮肤和皮下脂肪无严重萎缩的病变，热成像技术与临床检查相结合时，是一种很有前景的鉴别疾病活动的诊断工具。需要进一步评估以确定热成像技术是否能够预测病变的未来进展。
