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Excerpt
Core temperature can be measured at different sites of the body such as bladder, nasopharnyx or tympanic membrane, however invasive monitoring is not always possible or wanted. A new temporal-artery (TA) thermometer may be a feasible alternative.
Materials and Methods: We studied 50 patients (25 OR patients, 25 ICU patients); for each patient 7 measurements were performed. The value of the TA-thermometer was recorded twice, averaged and compared with a Mallinckrodt Thermistor built-in bladder catheter for core temperature measurement. Ambient temperature and forehead-sweating were recorded.
Results and Discussions: The mean difference between TA-measurements and bladder temperature was 0.58 ± 0.46°C.
Correlation coefficient for all measurements was 0.721 (p < 0.01).
326 measurements: Fever: Tcore > 37.8°C;
Hypothermia: Tcore < 35.5°C.
No influence of sweating was detected on the accuracy of the TA-thermometer.
Conclusion: The TA-thermometer is not yet able to replace invasive core temperature measurement methods due to the low sensitivity for both fever and hypothermia and due to the high mean difference (>0.5°C, above physiological variations [3]) between the TA and the bladder thermometer.
